Puppies at five weeks!
October 5, 2012
Puppies at five weeks!
Are they even more gorgeous? They are 6 weeks old today, and every day sees them going further afield, yesterday was their first time going to the toilet outside. It takes a few outings for a litter to feel safe enough to toilet away from the nest, clever Mother Nature protects the young by inhibiting toileting on new ground before the ground is familiar to them. This is the reason, when dog owners first take puppies home, they won’t go to the toilet on walks to begin with, this behaviour is designed to keep the young safe from predators. But it is just the reason I want to get the puppies outside as soon as possible to get them used to going outdoors and speed up their house training.
Next Monday I will start their training, sits downs and little recalls, regular grooming and a car ride, the more normal this stuff becomes the easier they will be in their new homes! Not all sold yet!
Thank you to Jo at Jobo design for the great photo’s!
Training a dog is not easy!!
April 27, 2012
Harley hits the spa!
Suffering in the name of beauty!
Wasn't that worth the effort!
At the Thursday class we got talking about how as people we either like to do things that come easily to us or conversely the hard stuff! I found it interesting that the group thought that I would have found dog training easy from the start, which is why I do it for a job! The reality is that it was the opposite for me, I found training my first dog and second, really challenging! That is what hooked me, as soon as I got good at competing with my dog my interest in competition waned! Teaching on the other hand is always challenging, whether is is getting inside the head of the dog or the handler, to find our way through to sucess! Next time you are feeling frustrated that your dog is not progressing as fast as you hoped or expected, just remember that is why I have a job still, lead training particularly takes real dedication and hard work, if it were easy everyone would be able to teach a dog or a person how in 5 minutes!
I believe the reason I am like this is that I am fascinated by learning, I ask myself what can I learn from this, how can I change this behaviour to what I want? If you can develop a sense of curiosity about why your dog is or isn’t doing what it does, you will start to open your minds to the information you need to succeed! So next time you feel like giving up, stop and consider how interesting this could be for you? ! 🙂
A dog story!
January 4, 2012
J cosy at home with the vacuum cleaner!
I wanted to share with you one of the responses I have had from the last blog, it is the real stories of dog owners out there that need to be heard! I am sure the people with the dogs rushing up to ours don’t really want to upset our dogs, they just don’t know the impact they are having! Please send in your story?
“I wanted to agree with what you’ve said. You may remember J – chocolate lab with epilepsy, very nervously aggressive around other dogs after being attacked a couple of times by off the lead dogs when he was a puppy just after he started having fits. Sadly and the aggression / anxiety around other dogs just got worse with age. Training didn’t help, and eventually I took the decision to let him have a happy life away from other dogs. He is off the lead only in large, deserted fields. On the lead problems only arise if an off-the-lead dog comes up to us. I see a dog off the lead I call to the owner to get them to call their dog back before trouble starts, then walk in the opposite direction. This, amazingly, doesn’t always work, and about half the time I get a “oh, he just wants to play” response and the owner virtually encourages their dog to come to mine!
I have since found lots of other dog owners in the same position as me: we are often made to feel guilty about not letting our dogs off the lead around other dogs, or not having other “doggy friends”. It really is a bit much! When I walk J, I end up having to shout at other people’s dogs to get them away from him. Walking dogs off the lead with a “he / she won’t hurt your dog, they just want to play!” comment is totally irresponsible. Your off-the-lead dog may well want to play, but mine doesn’t! My dog is terrified of anything on four legs and is a nervous wreck if anything gets within 10 feet of him. I had some classes from you about this, where you advised me to shout at the approaching off-the-lead dog and walk the other way. This almost always works, but I end up with plenty of abuse from the other dog’s owner. My dog is only ever aggressive when other dogs approach him, and I want to protect him and these other dogs from each other. If dogs stayed on the lead around other dogs, it would be so much easier and dog on dog attacks would be much rarer.
Unless owners have absolute control over their own dog off the lead (and in my own experience, that is rare as hen’s teeth!), dogs should be on the lead around other dogs. It is, frankly, arrogant to make the assumption that your dog won’t attack mine, or be attacked by mine: they don’t know each other and you don’t know my dog. Thank you for making this a New Year’s Resolution, and I hope everybody follows the advice.”
Happy birthday Nessa!
November 6, 2011
Happy birthday November 5th to Nessa! two years old and a grown up girl!
The photo’s show Nessa at various ages and bring back some great memories for me as I have had the privilege of being a part of most of Nessa’s training life!
Even Nessa can't get this ball in her mouth!
What hole?!
Nessa shows her disgust at West Ham's result!!
Hitching a ride!
August 30, 2011
Hitching a ride!
The Poodles are called Rumpus and Merlot and they really know how to travel in style! Both Standard Poodles belong to Corinne and Michael, the ones doing the work up the front are called Hugo and Jason 🙂 This may be an unusual sight but not around Great Canfield as Corinne and family regularly drive out from local Ashfields Carriage and Polo Club. I cannot claim any credit for the brilliant dog training, Merlot and Rumpus are all the work of Corinne, who runs a business looking after animals while people are away, what a great advert for her!
What else can we blame Disney for?
August 8, 2011
Wouldn’t it be great if our dogs could talk english, be the sort of characters that appear in the Disney films? 🙂 I know these stories influenced me as a child! I also remember the day I became disillusioned by my dog when I was about 20, it was a horrible shock to realise my dear little dog had not only killed but eaten one of my cats new-born kittens! That doesn’t happen in Disney films nor in the romantic world I had created for my pets. The experience did not stop me from idealizing my dogs completely, but now I have a more realistic view, shaped by even more life
Tallulah (Shar pei)
experience of reality.
The problem is not the Disney films, it is when we forget to remember that our dogs are real life animals.
When we leave the dog to decide, yes they do that in Disney movies, and guess what, the dog makes the best decision ever! What happens in real life if we leave it to the dog to decide:
- where and when we walk?
- when we feed?
- when we stroke?
- where they sleep?
we make the dog leader! And what do we get when the dog is in charge?
I await your answers on that:)?
The reality is though that most dogs do not want to be leader, they may want to be a Prefect, even head girl or boy but few are born to be headmaster/mistress and they really do not want that job! which is why dogs that are given too many choices are not happy!
Disney dogs are happy, at least they are by the end of the film, and live happy ever after too!
In real life we must be clear and make the important decisions for our dogs, to ensure our dogs live happy ever after lives!
Feeding time!
May 22, 2011
I thought you may be interested in my favourite feeding regime for my dogs, I will be interested to hear your comments :)?
In a perfect world I prefer my dogs to have full-time access to their food, this is called ad lib feeding. Sometimes it is not possible to feed like this if you have multiple dogs, it may be that Pie and Betty will be too competitive over food and will not settle to my regime, I will let you know!I haven’t been able to try until now, but now that Betty is over 12 months and on the same food as Pie, I can start working toward leaving food out all the time, this is how I have started!
I had Betty on adult food for about a month, to allow time for her to get over the novelty of a new food, once that was achieved I started to increase their meals a little more each day, until both dogs were walking away and leaving some food. For Pie that took about 2 days, he has been fed ad lib before! For Betty, who is very greedy and competitive it took nearly a week! I thought she would pop :)! I would add here that the food I use is very low in salt, colours, sugar and additives, this is an essential part of the process, otherwise these ingredients increase appetite.
Yes, Betty has put on a little weight but I know she will soon lose this again once she settles into the new regime! That is what I love about feeding dogs in this manner, they do not stay fat! If fed on the correct diet and given full access, they soon become confidant that food is always available with no need to eat a store for later and keep a perfect figure, making life easy for me!
Betty is now leaving food at every mealtime, so far she finishes the food either before the next mealtime or around that time, 2 weeks on and this morning Betty finished last nights dinner at breakfast time this morning, not as soon as she got up, but at the very time I would have fed her, this tells me she is still programmed to eat at those times and it may take a week or 2 for her to find “her” best eating time. I have refilled the bowls and Betty has eaten a very small amount, overall eating a much smaller breakfast than before we started this process, therefore already her body weight is beginning to return to normal!
Regarding the best eating time, with any animal it is not good for them to eat a large amount just before exercising, it can cause health problems if they do, those of you with deep-chested dogs will be particularly aware of the problems. In the past I have found that my dogs naturally establish an eating routine around consuming the largest amount late in the day, when they are sure all activities have ceased. Strangely not a time of day I would advocate feeding a pet! Yet when allowed to choose it has been all of my dogs favourite time!
Another plus is the dog will be hungry for titbits when training! The regular food is obviously pretty useless for training, but a treat really is a treat!
A dog attack|
April 22, 2011
Below is an account sent to me of a nasty incident when one of my clients was out with her dog. This experience is made even worse by the fact my client wishes to remain anonymous as she is afraid that the dog owner may be dubious enough in character to pursue her, plus the police are taking action. I look forward to hearing your comments?
I have written a summary of what happened to my dog and I a few weeks ago just to make you aware that there are dangerous dogs running about off lead and that you need to take care. I cannot mention too many details for legal reasons but I hope that it is enough for you to understand that you need to be aware.
Whist out walking my little dog with a friend and her dog we decided to go to a local nature reserve as we thought that it would be nice for the dogs to investigate somewhere new ( I do not usually go to these places on my own as I have been previously worried by dogs running around off lead with owners nowhere to be seen). We had just entered the reserve with our dogs (both on leads) along a path which opens up to a large green space with trees and a pond. As we turned the corner my friend shouted good god and as I looked up I saw three large dogs running towards us with no owner to be seen, before I knew it the big dog went straight in and bit my little dog with no warning, she then yelped so I remembered very quickly what I had been told by Avril on a course which I had done last year. I immediately kicked the dog off and managed to pick up my little dog and put her under my arm all the time I was making growling noises as I thought that this would make him stop and go away. It didn’t he came straight for me, this was a very big dog biting at my arms and with his paws on my chest I can still see his face in mine. My friend was screaming at the owner who had just appeared to put his dogs on leads. I didn’t realise until later that the other two dogs had been scratching at my legs and trying to bite (my friend told me the next day) thank god that I didn’t know. I think that it all happened so quickly that I did manage to blank bits out) I found the evidence the next day on my legs. When the owner did eventually get them on leads he walk off. By this time I noticed that my little dog was bleeding and that I needed to get her to the vet immediately. It was not that far to walk and on the way the police came to hand and helped us. When I get to the vets my vet took her to be seen straight away as he was worried about the depth of her injuries. When they sat me down and took my jacket and jumper off they found that I had also been bitten I think that you are so shocked that you switch off and don’t feel a thing. I got away with just a tetanus injection by my little dog sustained a big bite to her back for which she had to have stitches and scratches to her body thankfully she did not have internal injuries which was the main worry. The vet told me that by picking her up I saved her life as this dog could have quite easily killed her. My dog has made a remarkable recovery thank god although I think that I will take a little longer to heal as the threat of something like this happening again is scary to say the least but like all experiences in life we learn from them and I hope that by telling you my story it will make you think and ultimately keep your precious dogs safe.
Avril Munson's Blog 