Betty meets Mac!
June 9, 2010
Betty meets Mac
Tuesday I was baby sitting my nephew Mac while Mum Lucie had a hair cut, I took my entertainment with me, Betty! Mac is used to living with a dog and loves animals, he was fascinated by Betty as she was with him! They got on great, Mac is a perfect child to introduce a puppy to as he is relaxed with dogs, not at all phased by her rushing around and jumping about! Mac was so gentle with her, a great start to her experiences with small children.
By introducing Betty and continuing to expose her to children from this young age, she will grow up enjoying children!
By the time Lucie came home Betty was sound asleep and Mac content with me following him round 🙂
I have to confess, that evening I had a really painful neck, no idea how I did that, but it is at times like that it is hard work having a small puppy, all I wanted to do was lay on the sofa and watch TV and sulk about my neck! Betty had to make do with less than usual attention from me! Pie was grateful for some down time on the sofa with me:) Thankfully today I have been to a great therapist, Beth, and I am much better!
Betty’s first walk!
June 8, 2010
Monday and the start of our first proper week, Betty is now feeling quite at home and safe and I need some routine so that I can get some work done amongst all this puppy training!
I start the day with a walk coupled with a little training with Pie, next it is Betty’s turn. The part I find hardest about having more than one dog is having to split myself between them and the knowledge that up to a few days ago Pie was an only dog, having my undivided attention, like every other dog owner I feel guilty that he is not ever going to get all the attention again, but he is a dog and he can and will adjust! By walking him first on his own he gets the most important (in his eyes) part of the day to himself :)!
I must have time alone to train Betty before Pie becomes the most important person in her life!
I need to tire Betty out so that I can get some work done, I take her on a new adventure out of the garden! I carried her to the nearby paddock, she changed immediately we left the garden, becoming a little subdued and more alert to the sounds of nature around us, these were the same pheasant noises she heard in the garden, but now she was on the alert! I alternated carrying her and putting her down and encouraging her to follow, sometimes she would just sit and be a little afraid to follow, if I couldn’t persuade her I simply picked her up again, I want her to know I am safe, whatever else might happen! Once we turned back to home she became braver and was now on the ground all the time, coming onto land for the second time made that much difference! I kept moving away from her to stimulate the natural instinct to follow, which she did happily. I had put some of her puppy food in my pocket and now she was more relaxed I started calling “Betty puppy” and giving her a piece when she arrived, it took about 3 or 4 pieces before she twigged that it might not be an accident, and I then reduced the sound to “Betty” to start the job of teaching her her name. (Most breeders call “puppy” or similar when feeding the litter, in the early days before the puppy has learnt her name this call can be used to wean the puppy to her new name), having programmed her with the food, she happily continued to respond! The whole “walk” only lasted about 10 minutes and I was carrying her for a good part of it. We arrived home and Betty went silly with confidence now she was back on familiar territory, yet I had seen the signs of stress and knew she was tired, time for me to work and Betty to have more practice with the crate door shut. I put the crate by me as I sit at the PC, it took a few minutes for her to settle, we had a bit of whining, but it was half-hearted and simply her winding down from the excitement, she was soon fast asleep again!
Betty and her new favourite toy the milk bottle!
Come my coffee break two hours later, I took her out to the toilet and a little play in the garden before leaving her in the kitchen, crate door open to amuse herself while I went back to work, her favourite toy today is an empty plastic milk bottle, very cheap toy! Apart from lunch time she spent the time in the kitchen to sleep or playing on her own until it was time for my Pilates lesson, and another outing! This time in the car I put her in a small carry crate that would fit on the front sit, this way she was secure and could see me, she settled very quickly, this means that in no time she will be in the crate in boot, once I am confidant she feels secure.
Coffee break and a quick scratch at her collar
Meeting Tracey and Pilates
Betty in her car carrier
At meal times I use about half her food to teach Betty sit and down, well at 3 of her 4 meal times, in the morning I just want some tea! I will make a small video and show you this soon!
I look forward to your comments and questions 🙂
Visitors and adventures at Barnards Bridge!
June 7, 2010
Butter wouldn't melt!
Day 3 and 4!
On saturday I had a group at the house for the dog Behaviour/psychology course, so 7 new people for Betty to meet! She was in her element with so many cuddles, Annie does such a great job with her litters, they have so many visitors from day one that new people are a part of their life from the start, and being raised in the house everything domestic is easy for Betty! With so much going on all day the evening with Betty was easy, she was nicely tired out, so feet up time for me!
Sunday I took Betty to meet my good friends Adam and Ian at Barnard’s Bridge, a great place to take a puppy for social experiences. Having met “the gays” (Ian’s words!) we took her into the garden for a photo shoot, Ian is a great photographer and I look forward to sharing some of the photo’s with you when Ian gets them to me! A very large Buff Orpington chicken was busy in the garden already and came over straight away to have a look at Betty, I am not sure what the hen thought she was but she wasn’t happy to see Betty and began to stalk her, Betty tried to ignore this big feathery stalker, but it was getting closer and eventually she couldn’t resist any longer and approached her, the hen is called Elizabeth :), Elizabeth was not impressed and fluffed herself up even bigger and looked like she might strike Betty, Betty ducked and made a hasty retreat to me where she got a big cuddle! What a great start for Betty to learn not to chase chickens, over the coming weeks I will take her back for another look and to reinforce this lesson.
The chicken was the only thing to phase Betty, the garden she loved and explored and romped in while we drank tea and Ian continued capturing her on camera. Before leaving we made a brief visit to the other animals, Barnard’s is like the ark! Donkeys, ponies, goats, sheep and Alpaca’s. Standing at the gate with Betty held high, Ian called the animals and they came galloping down the field, sheep baaing noisily, Betty was not impressed, this was seriously scary!
It is a common myth that holding a puppy at a time when they are scared will make them more scared, in fact the reverse is true, the shepherd carries the Collie puppy, often in his pocket on their early introduction to sheep. Now my guess is this was done originally for practical purposes to stop the puppy being trampled, but the outcome is that as the puppy gets to view the sheep from on high and remain safe they get braver and come to feel superior to the sheep. If carried around the sheep for too long the puppy would grow to have little respect or fear of the sheep, so timing is everything, I will show Betty the animals from my arms until I feel she is confidant, but she will go on the ground on a lead when the time is right to learn respect also.
Betty was stressed by so many new experiences and this showed itself by her going sleepy, time to go home. In the car Betty fell asleep immediately, once home she bounced back to life, but I knew how much the morning had taken out of her, so having fed her it was time for a snooze, a great time to close the door on the crate, though I had the crate by me so that she could see me, Betty slept for 3 hours!
The way I try to work it with my puppies is, when they have a lot of energy I look to give them a new experience, this way it makes sure I keep on target to expose them to enough life experiences so that they can cope easily with my life style. and at the same time limits the mischief they get into and therefore keeps me sane! New equals stressful equals sleep puppy, too much stress and stimulation can lead to health problems or a hyper active dog. I find if I let the puppy guide me through noticing how full of beans they are, we can keep roughly on track.
Pie is funny now, on the one hand is likes Betty, yet it takes 14 days for a dog to be completely accepted into a new dog pack, so Betty has several days to go, and Pie continues to keep his distance from her, grumping when she goes after him and gets too close, he is getting more half-hearted in his reaction to her and I can see that confuses her, on several occasions now I have plucked her out of his way, especially when her adrenalin is up and she is less likely to take notice of Pie. It is vital he knows I am on his side, the pack united in teaching the newcomer the rules, this will ensure a harmonious household in the coming weeks, months, years!
Toilet training is going well, more toileting outside than indoors, I don’t expect Betty to get it right all the time yet, I take her out on all the obvious times and some in between, but inevitably I miss some. Once she is a week or so older I will be shutting he in her crate more and I know that will help us both to get it right a great deal more.
I have been putting a little puppy collar on and off regularly and today is the first day she hasn’t tried to scratch it off, so seems that job is done! Now I will start attaching the lead in short bursts and monitoring her dragging it around, it is a very light weight one.
Out night-time pattern has stayed the same, though there is no squeaking at all when I first leave her, and in the morning just one puddle, I am delighted!
Day two of Betty!
June 5, 2010
The hardest part of having a new puppy is how full on life suddenly becomes, everything focussed around the new baby! At seven weeks she is sleeping a lot of the time, yet my day is planned around when Betty eats, sleeps and taking her out to the toilet!Pie who loves puppies is distinctly unimpressed, grumping if Betty gets too close, dear little Betty simply goes into a submissive posture, low on her belly or retreats from him rapidly! Watching them I can see Pie does like her but is playing the big guy, letting her know who’s the boss here!
Pie looking on!
What a difference 24 hours makes, as it came up to exactly 24 hours from her arrival her confidence kicks in! She turns into a whirling dervish of mischief, hanging off my jeans, chasing Pie, who continues to stay macho and has to make a louder noise to deter her from jumping on him! I have only closed the cage door so far when she has her food, but I can see we need to be progressing now her confidence has arrived!
I spent most of the evening being entertained by her and Pie, Betty running at him, Pie barking, Betty retreating before rushing at him again and the whole act repeats itself! She is eating every bit of rubbish on the floor, inside and out! I can easily distract her from anything worrisome and cross my fingers and hope her stomach doesn’t react too badly!
Time to get creative with her entertainment, I am delighted with myself for thinking of hanging the ball on a rope on her cage door, so is Betty for a few minutes, but every bit helps!
Home entertainment!
The ball on a rope off the cage door keeps Betty busy for a while!
I couldn’t help but let her stay on my lap later in the evening when she fell asleep, I do love a cuddle 🙂 ! I knew I had to get her ready to be alone at bedtime, so after her last feed at 9pm we spent some time out side and once back in the kitchen, I busied myself to help her prepare for me leaving her again. At around 10pm I left the kitchen and went in my office for a few minutes until she stopped the tiny bit of whining and settled down.
Through the night I came too occasionally but again all was quiet! I got up at 6am to just one puddle and a happy Betty! She had obviously been very settled or she would have been more active and gone to the toilet more, I was delighted to see her rapid adjustment to her new home!
With this much confidence her training could begin today!
One subject that came up when I asked for your ideas on suitable blog topics was “how to cope with strange dogs on a walk”. This is a favourite subject of mine, I am constantly amazed, stunned and downright cross with other dog owners when I walk my dog in the company other dog walkers!
Here is Bella’s story of what happened to her and her little Pug on a walk:
“A loose dog went for Toddy (who was on lead) the other day and got its jaws round his back leg. I shouted and swooped down on the dog and it let go long enough for me to pick Toddy up. There was no damage. However it was lucky it happened with Toddy not Snifter. Snifter would have reacted aggressively (Toddy was just surprised), there would probably have been a fight and possible lasting psychological issues as well as possible physical injury. So a discussion of how we can discourage other dogs from getting at ours, how to deal with the owner who insists their dog “only wants to play” – I have seen play and it does not look like that – and how we can reassure our dogs would certainly be of interest to me. I am convinced that some of Snifter’s antipathy to certain other dogs stems from my inexperience when he was a puppy and got menaced by a couple of Border Collies in our park.”
Please send in your stories of similar experiences, I will gladly respond and I think many of other Blog visitors will too!
Toddy
Here is one of my worse experiences walking in the park with a group of clients and there dogs:
I was out with 5 of my clients and there dogs in the park, a planned trip to take our training into the public! All was going well with recalls and lead work training until the Labrador in the group went lame! A big dog I was naturally concerned for him and his upset owner, and we started back to the car park to get him to the car and on to the Vet’s, luckily we weren’t too far away, but on the route a man was walking along with his Flat Coat Retriever off the lead, she obviously a very friendly dog, too friendly, she made a bee line for the weakened Labrador, I, like a tigress defending her cubs, leapt in front of him to protect him and head her off! She was not easily dissuaded from jumping on him and I got progressively firmer in deterring her, starting out shooing her verbally and waving her off, she kept coming and ran into my hand, she backed off, but her owner didn’t! He bore down on me and started to rant, standing right in my face, we were practically toe to toe, I wasn’t moving (foolishly maybe but my blood was up now), he threatened to call the police and accused me of attacking his dog! I explained, as calmly as I could, the situation and my concern for the injured dog, he wasn’t listening and became more offensive, I am sad to say I lost it at this point and told him very loudly to back off and take his dog with him, treating him much as I had his dog really! I told him I would ring the police and charge him with assault!
Luckily he went, I was shaken, and felt bad that my clients class had been tainted by the experience, after all I was at work! My group were great and very supportive but none the less we were all shaken by the experience, the man had behaved in a very threatening way.
On arriving home I rang the local dog warden and the police, thankfully my dog warden responded brilliantly! She visited the man, I had asked for his name, and as a result the next time I was in the park, this time I took my sister and our dogs, not my clients, he apologised profusely, he was a different man to the one I had seen before. The dog warden had explained that there is a by law that states all walkers, with or without a dog have the right to walk in public unimpeded by other peoples dogs! and we have the right to make that happen if the owner of the dog cannot!
I am telling you this story, not because I am proud of my own behaviour, but then none of us are perfect or get it right all the time, and in the world of dogs things often go awry, and sometime it is a matter of managing the best you can.
I have to say that when I walk in that same park these days the regular dog walkers keep away from me and my dog! Word has spread and I am glad of it, though I am sure I am unpopular with them!
So a long answer to Bella’s query! In short I do whatever it takes, but for the most I keep my dog behind me and prevent the other dog getting to him, in the case of young puppies or very friendly dogs, I get hold of their collars and hand them back to the owners. With owners that assure me their dog is friendly I tell them mine is not, to be honest he is, but if there dog is not he could learn to fight, and then what would I do when he has to work with me and my clients dogs. The reality is that a strange dog is an unknown quantity, a strange pack, and the meeting of unknown dogs is, for the most part just that unknown but could be dangerous, I do not take the chance, my dogs temperament and safety is too important. Again this can go wrong, if my dog was upset by another dog, and that has happened to me too, the way forward is to create some experiences over the following days and weeks that are more positive to put the bad experience to rest. More on that subject to come soon, now come on let me have your stories so that we can share and learn from each other?
A new puppy class!
April 29, 2010
We have started off teaching them to sit and watch, go down, lead work and how to stop them jumping up, as you can
see they are making excellent progress!
- Sue and Nessa giving a great example of the watch exercise!
Herbie being a very good boy!
Cathy and Herbie demonstrating the watch on command!
Pauline and Ben showing small dogs can be obedient too!
Pauline had to get down low to start Ben off on teaching him to watch.
Ben is just too cute! But he is very clever too!
Nessa showing that Staffies can be nice!
Recall training morning at Barbary Cottage!
April 28, 2010
Sarah giving great body language for the recall
Sharon looking great on heelwork!
Sarah looking very pleased with Charlie!
We start by getting the short recall right!
more short recall for Charlie
Jane and Freddy can do the short recall too!
A lovely shot of great lead work!
We all need a tea break, well we had worked hard!
We had a great morning, and the sun shone for us too! The dogs responded well to the strutured training, by the time we felt brave enough to leave the safety of the fenced garden and go into the paddock, the dogs were responding well. Anne and Sharon had been to the training session a month before so were able to advance more, I was thrilled to see the improvement in their dogs and in their handling!
Recall on the long line out in the fields
The long line is our safety net!
Avril on the Steve Scruton show at BBC Essex Radio
April 23, 2010
Steve hard at work behind the desk
As ever I had a great time with Steve Scruton at the BBC Essex Studio in Chelmsford! We had some great callers with Dog questions and covered dog behaviour subjects like toilet training, separation anxiety, biting, dog to dog aggression and several more, if you missed the show and would like to listen in you can do for the next seven days via i player at the address below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p007d8bd/The_Afternoon_Show_on_BBC_Essex_23_04_2010/
Avril behind the mike
John came in to tell everyone about his show later in the day!
Steve with the BBC sign!
Me and my good friend Steve!
Could this be Toto?
April 8, 2010
A young Dennis on his skateboard!
I am proud to introduce you to Dennis and his owner Maggie (of Allsorts Dog training),
Dennis was from a litter I bred from Gracie and my Teddy and I am very proud that Maggie has been attending the auditions for Toto, fingers crossed for Maggie and Dennis this week as they wait to hear if they go before the “Lord” next week!
Needless to say I will expect you all to vote for him on TV should he get to the last 5!
Do you want your dog to help with the gardening?
March 31, 2010
Does this look familiar? Have you got a photo of the real thing to share?
Spring is coming and the dogs will be spending more time out there, typically I am sure to be having a lot of questions about how to stop the puppies turning the garden into a bomb site! In anticipation here are some tips for those of you who are keen gardeners and do not want to lose your favourite plants this summer!
The good news first, dogs grow out of gardening by around their second birthday! If they don’t, it is not normal behaviour and you need to come and see me to correct the misunderstanding they have!
While growing it is natural for a puppy to explore their world and the garden is a wonderful place for them to do this, eating dirt, chewing sticks up, eating plants, digging around for insects, or just to see what is there is all normal behaviour, and if you fight this natural need to explore you will create more behaviour problems for yourself.
Management is the answer, by either fencing off an area that you give over to the puppy, or protecting your precious shrubs by fencing them off, to protect them from your puppy will make your life simpler, and allow your puppy to develop without upsetting you!
Ideally create a digging area for your puppy that is more interesting than the rest of the garden, this can be an earth area or you could make a sand pit, to reduce the mud you might get in the house. For a sand pit/digging area to be interesting you will have to dig it over once a day, add toys and objects of interest to the area, preferably bury these bits to make it more fun to find them!
Remember if you have just dug a part of the garden, or even better planted bulbs or plants, your puppy will make a bee line for this spot, your scent will make him think it must be interesting, prevent the puppy having access to this area for a few days until your scent has faded.
I am always delighted to have your queries and comments on any of the articles as it can lead to more clarity! Do you have a photo of your puppy digging in the garden for me to add to this post please?
Avril Munson's Blog 