Pie takes Betty to the seaside!
June 28, 2010
Betty sees the sea!
Isnt this weather great! I made the most of the sun with a trip to Southwold and Dunwich with Adam and Ian and the dogs! Betty’s first trip to the seaside!
On the behaviour course last weekend we were talking about social things to introduce puppies too, and Jeanette, who is into gun dog training was saying how swimming introduced in the early weeks makes for good swimmers. I must confess having my dogs swimming has not been a priority for me, though I can see it would be for gun dog owners. Pie does not like the water, but interestly as he was born in September it was not the right weather for beach trips in his the early days! Both of my last two Collies, Teddy and Truly were born earlier in the year so I guess they did get to the water early on, and both liked swimming!
I carried Betty most of the walk to the beach at Dunwich, saving her energy for the beach part! She was fascinated when she saw the water, but soon decided to stay near Pie, and true to form Pie put his brakes on every time the tide got close, not getting even his feet wet and Betty did just as he did! Eventually I went in paddling to encourage Pie in further, he overcame his reluctance to follow me and dear little Betty was right behind him :), being so small she was soon in to deep water for her! Betty took it all in her stride, swimming round me, I got worried and steered her back to the beach! She proved it wasn’t just a mistake by doing the same again, so it seems she will be a swimmer!
We all collapsed in giggles at a wet Betty, she looked so silly, skinny little legs, looking more like a whippet than a Collie as you can see from the photo!
I have seen how to insert a slide show, let me know if you prefer this format or shown photo’s?
Betty thought Ian looked like a perfect towel for her, when he sat on the beach, and used his shirt to dry off!
Betty, yoghurt pots, pack leadership and me and Pie
June 24, 2010
Betty waits for her turn with the yoghurt pot!
I do like yoghurt 🙂 not that I have one every day, over the years I have always given my older dog the pot when I am done, to lick out. First it was Truly and Teddy would wait for second pickings, when Truly died Teddy got the pot first and when Pie came along he got it second. Now it is Pie’s turn!
Betty has her turn with the pot!
Now that Pie has taught Betty not to jump on him, it seemed a good time to try out the yoghurt pot with Betty, I don’t give my young dogs food when I am eating generally, but I think this is a great way of emphasing the pecking order to Betty, and I love to see if she has accepted the order of life. As you can see in the photo, Betty pretends not to be interested in what Pie is doing, yet lies close enough to know, and the second he walks away from the pot she has it!
There are some days when I find it so easy to see how troublesome behaviour can start, even as a dog trainer I could easily get things wrong, and do!
Last week Betty had her vaccinations, I was a little concerned for a day or two as her tummy was a bit upset and she was a little quieter than normal, Friday night she woke me just after midnight vomiting and I was sure I would be taking her to the Vet Saturday morning! I had withheld her fourth meal on the friday because her tummy wasn’t right and having spoken to Annie, her breeder, we agreed I was likely over feeding her, I usually do with my puppies, which shows itself with diarrhea!
Come saturday morning, Betty was back on full form, her energy level was back to normal and her appetite enormous, I gave her a very small breakfast to check out how her tummy was and all was fine and back to normal! How quickly little puppy’s can go from ill to okay!
Now it is hard to tell which was the issue the vaccinations or me over feeding, or both! She is the greediest puppy I have had, even more so than Pie, though only just! Having missed a meal she was sure her throat had been cut and she was starving, eating every bit of rubbish in the garden, so now her hunger could lead to her eating something really harmful! On Sunday I took her for a little walk by the lake near me and she soon found some left over crab pincers (I guess the fishermen use crab meat for bait?), now I am sure this couldn’t be great for a puppies tummy, I did my best to distract her with my tit bits but she was not convinced and finally I had to take it off her. I avoid taking anything food like off of my puppies always, unless it is really dangerous, and I must admit crab pincers are a new one on me.The reason I avoid this so much is because of how puppies learn, if you can imagine in the wild a puppy simply learns what is desirable to eat by whether the other animals want it or eat it, and taking anything away for a puppy means in the puppies eyes we are eating it! Therefore the more any of us take undesirable stuff off of our puppies the more they learn to think this very thing is desirable! I have seen this to such extremes that dogs eat the most unnatural and dangerous items.
So now I have a very hungry puppy and the added danger of her eating more unhealthy rubbish, though the dogs stomach is designed to cope with extreme bacteria! Having returned Betty to the house, Pie and I went out to the lake with rubbish bags, one over my hand, not just to avoid the bacteria but also to avoid leaving my scent in the area the crab bits have been, (Betty would then associate my scent and the crab bits) to clear this unusual rubbish up! Interestingly Pie was not at all interested in the pincers but then I guess he wasn’t exposed to them as a puppy so does not think of them as food!
The tummy issues caused more problems with Betty’s house training, we had got into a good routine, I knew for the most part when she would need to go and as a result her house training was coming along brilliantly, with the variation in her diet and her upset tummy her toilet routine has gone out the window as a result I am out of sync and we have had more accidents indoors, not Betty’s fault as she was not able to go out side so had little choice!
Now I am doing the best I can to fill her up without overfeeding her and rediscover her toilet times!
Betty eating harmless rubbish! Better known as exploring her options!
Photo’s from Betty’s adventures at Barnards Bridge!
June 21, 2010
Am I allowed in here?
Sheep and Alpaca's
Betty sees the sheep and alpaca's
Anyone else coming?
Betty meets Adam
Laces are always good fun!
I'm coming!
Elizabeth the Buff Orpington
Betty tries to ignore the chicken
Betty thinks the chicken wants to be friends!
I thought she wanted to be friends but no, I am out of here!
Betty and bedtime and vaccinations!
June 17, 2010
My puppy group this morning were talking about how their puppies were causing havoc in the living room in the evening, yet feeling that 8pm was too early to leave them out in the kitchen when the family are ready to relax. I have to say I disagreed, 8pm is late enough for baby puppy’s, my Betty is only in the living room if she is dozy and cuddles on my lap or I am just going in and out again. For the most part she stays in the kitchen and utility room, where there are hard floors, at this time in her life carpet is not understood and she is likely to toilet on that type of floor, it is just too like grass in her little mind. By keeping her out of the rooms with carpet, at least for playtimes, toilet training goes smoother and if she does have an accident (usually my fault for not getting her out!) it is easy to clean up!
My puppy owners all reported bad and silly behaviour from their puppy’s in the evening, behaviour worse than any other time of the day, this is often a sign of tiredness and a resistence to resting, by keeping the puppy in the familiar sleeping area they will settle themselves and not develop bad behaviour issues. I would say that many of the behaviour problems I see in older puppies often stems from them being over stimulated in early life, having too much attention can often lead to as bad if not worse behaviour than too little! As the grown up we have to tell them when enough is enough, just as we do with young children.
After 8pm I still take Betty out to the toilet as needed, give her a last meal around 9.30pm, then out to the toilet until I see her have a last pooh! After that she is in the kitchen until I go to bed, when I take her out for one last toilet, this week she then comes upstairs and into her crate for the night, by next week she should be in her crate downstairs. I like my puppy to have the first week, where I shut the crate door at night, by my bed to give them comfort, after that they are fine in the crate anywhere, and I feel okay about it too! I must confess the first two evenings I had Betty, I did keep running around after her until around 10pm, this just meant I was wacked and if I had kept doing that I would have enjoyed her less in the day, and it was not necessary, we all need down time.
Last night Betty had her first vaccination, 😦 she was so pleased to see everyone in the vets waiting room, her tail didn’t stop wagging! She was especially pleased to meet the 12 week old Labrador sitting next to us, who’s poor owner had bite marks all up her wrists, though the puppy looked very sweet! Betty was wearing her collar and lead, which she is used to now, and the Labrador was not, though four weeks older, her owner commented on Betty wearing hers and said she had not introduced the collar as yet! What a shame, the puppy was now ready to go out formally and would have no previous experience of wearing the collar!
One of the reasons I introduce the collar and lead and anything else needed later is to give the puppy something to think about, it is giving them these tasks that helps reduce play biting, a bored puppy, that is one that just gets to do their own thing all the time will be worse at play biting for sure! In fact I do not wait, as you will know by now, to take my puppy out. Now I do not take them to high risk places where many dogs will have been, but my friends houses and the paddocks near my house are all great for stretching and solialising and training, all of which helps prevent the puppy learning and practising behaviour we do not want!
Betty yelped when she had the injection:( and was very sad afterwards, sleeping most of the evening, unusually for her! I opted not to have her micro chipped yet as that is even more painful and I do not want her to be anxious about the Vets so early in life. I will wait until she is a little older as she seems to have a low pain threshold, unlike Pie who didn’t flinch at injections or the chip! It is a touch life for the young:). Today is the first time her pooh has been less than firm (despite all the garden bits she enthusiastically eats) which is the stress and possibly the vaccination, though she is fine in herself! I am sure she will be completely back to normal tomorrow.
Betty on the move!
Car travel and Betty visits her relatives!
June 16, 2010
Betty with some of her sisters!
Betty being important
Up until today I had only taken Betty on several short car journey’s, I hadn’t planned it that way, it was how my life was last week, she was fine in the car but a bit squeaky. It might have been easy to think she didn’t like the car because of the squeaking, but I suspected that she was already finding the trips exciting! Yesterday I had to go to Colchester and I decided to drop in to see Annie and the remaining puppy’s with Betty. The journey is about forty minutes and Betty squeaked a bit for the first ten minutes in her crate, then slept! No more squeaking coming home either, I will ensure we do more longer trips over the coming weeks to make sure she learns to settle in the car.
It is only because I know her temperament and my experience of dogs, that I knew it was the life experience she was having that was producing the wrong behaviour in the car, how easy it is to go wrong with puppy’s, but once spotted can be put right easily too!
Betty was very excited to be back at her first home, she was full of herself with the other puppy’s, I could almost hear her telling them what a girl of the world she is now. she strutted round them full of self-importance! Her Mum Gracie was so pleased to see her, Gracie is a lovely Mum and even loves to play with her babies, many bitches are fed up with their pups by this time.
Betty was a little more demure in the garden with the bigger dogs though!
Bronte is Annie’s puppy from Buffy, (see “a story of a whelping” blog) and two weeks younger than Betty, I am sure Bronte and Betty will be great friends as they grow up! Annie’s dogs are like extended pack to mine and vice versa as we are great friends, meet regularly and have each others dogs to stay.
Annie's puppy the long awaited Bronte!
Pie trains Betty!
June 15, 2010
Betty trying to convince Pie that she is more interesting than his bone!
I am fascinated watching Pie and Betty, I don’t have them together all the time, they spend a good time apart or I will lose my puppy to Pie! And I need and want a good relationship with both of them! But when they are together I love to watch the interactions, in a little over a week Pie has taught Betty not to jump on him when he is lying down, well for most of the time! She does forget sometimes when she is very excited, how has he taught her you ask? 🙂 He is a lesson in determined persistence, he never loses his temper, the volume goes up sometimes to a bark, but mostly it is a grump noise that deters her! Every time she jumps on him he grumps, it took sixish times for her to get the message (the 6 repeats to train anything applies to this too it seems!), sometimes he backs up the grump with walking away, sometimes he stands up to bark then lies down again. Betty ends up squirming on her back looking as cute as she can to win him over, and submitting to boot! Sometimes, when she is half-hearted in her attempts he simply ignores her. The most I have seen him do under severe provocation is to hold her nose in his mouth, but he can’t be biting as I have not heard Betty squeal once, he hasn’t frightened her once! Pie is a very good puppy trainer! Every day and on every occasion he repeats the same similar procedure, and now he is reaping his reward, he can lie in the kitchen or garden nine times out of ten without being pounced on. Betty tries every angle, playing with his tail is allowed until she hits his tail bone, when the grump comes again!
My old Teddy, the dog that Pie grew up with was more fierce with him, I wonder if that was because Pie was a tougher puppy, but I suspect it was more to do with Teddy being a tougher leader, as was his Mum, Truly, who he grew up with.
I know in the wild the pack leader varies in how bossy and tough they are, it is about personality types, just as in people.
In dog training it is far more productive to be gently persistent, by repeating over and over the exercise or deterring a behaviour the dog will learn and retain training only through these consistent repetitions. Where as if “scare” tactics are used the dog simply freezes, learns nothing and once recovered from the scare will repeat the old behaviour.
Betty is truly learning not to jump on Pie, and I am coming to appreciate Pie in a new way. My dear Teddy, who died last February, was a saint of a dog, and it has been tough for Pie to become top dog in my heart, but he is working his way through just as persistently as he is training Betty!
Betty learns not to jump on Pie!
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!
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