spottychick

Oh dear.

Hi koalathebear - my understanding from trainers I've talked to is "playing with the food" is different to giving a dog his bowl of food and then taking it away again. You have your dog in drive, he is doing stuff for his reward and then, once he's done all that and is eating the food, the reward is withdrawn for no apparent reason!!! That's a problem. Making the dog wait for the food, stop half way to it, perform tricks for it etc is terrific - but then once you give him his treat or dinner you destroy all the work if you take it back off him. Personally I wouldn't be letting a small child play with the dogs food regardless.

Your son isn't her pack leader. If anyone is, YOU are. This approach only confuses the dog. Personally I don't approach training in terms of me or any human trying to be a "pack leader" - I'm not a dog and I'm pretty sure my dogs know that LOL But I am their human leader - I try to convey that I'm a gentle, consistent, trustworthy and strong human leader. ANy canine "pack" issues are just between the dogs. Why should she "surrender her food" to anyone? What she needs to learn is that if he goes near her food he is not going to take it away from her so she can trust him.

Please don't do this .... IMO there is no need, and it could end badly one time. If you really want to play around with a dog and food- just add a few treats to her bowl during a meal ... or do the 'swap' game ... giving her a treat when she brings you a toy ... then giving a treat when she brings you a bone.... bit this is in the future. For now she needs to eat in peace & quiet. I agree! This is NOT a good thing to do. It only undermines the puppy's trust - imagine how it seems from the puppys point of view. You give her food then you take it away again. I can imagine this will just make her more frantic about getting the food BEFORE anyone can take it from her. I also recommend the Triangle Of Temptation programme and lots and LOTS of patience. The pup here is put through TOT for every meal. I don't feed him if he jumps up at me. Remember not to let him become scared of you when you're teaching him because he won't be able to take in what you're teaching. ETA Putting food INTO her bowl would be better as perspephone says. That way she sees you or anyone else going near her bowl as a positive event not a negative one. But personally I like to leave them alone when they're eating - and only occassionally add more into their bowl.

Interesting. I've never heard that before.

Ah now Baxter - wouldnt that be like making him part of the family BTW Guess who is playing tug and "chase me coz I've got the squeaky toy" with Dylan.........

SHe might have been in pain the first time you went back and also still jumpy. Just a little too soon - she probably was just wanting to hide away and recover. So happy to hear she's okay with her buddy now It's so hard to find somewhere that's safe to let your dog play isn't it. Especially in the city or larger towns. There's some advantages to living in a little place like I do ;)

I need to recharge the phone to get pics - thanks for reminding me

You needed a challenge You have too much time You got sucked in by a very handsome guy LOL I wish!!! I'm struggling to get stuff done while supervising world war three in my house hee hee He is very handsome tho

Hey persephone LOL It feels like he's been here for weeks!!! Yeah - I think Dylan is a good strong name I think Tango sees him as a PITA but Pepper is a bit worried by him I suspect - she was accidentally injured by an over-enthusiastic 12 mth old dog once. He was just playing and she was playing too but he hurled himself at her and broke her rib. I suspect she's worried this fella will do the same so she gets nervous when he rushes her. I'm quite surprised at how full on her response is - I've had to call her off a couple of times. She gets him on the ground and wont let him back up. I don't know if I should be overly worried about it - but she hasn't actually hurt him at this point. Just scared him (and me LOL)

Yep, most of his stuff is just him being too smart!! I think he's extremely trainable and has already progressed with 'TOT' from completely ignoring me and being distracted by everything to sitting and looking at me and then going for his food when I let him off the lead and say okay. All without me using any words or instructions and that's in just 3 days - not bad I reckon, especially for a pup that's been thrown into a new situation. I've never tried clicker training before but I'm thinking I might buy a clicker and give it a go with him. Good to hear people like the name He isn't responding to it yet LOL but he's not responding to any name so it's okay - we'll get there. I'm exhausted btw - WHy did I do this again? hee hee

This is what's in Gatorade "water, sugar, table salt, carbohydrates, electrolytes (110 mg sodium, 30 mg potassium, 93 mg chloride), high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, glucose, fructose, and more sugar" Personally I wouldn't take it myself LOL and definitely wouldn't give it to my dogs Michelleva - Lectade is in most online pet stores - I get it from Vetnpetdirect.com.au

Just a quick update. Pepper and Tango are both getting grumpy at and beating up the puppy but so far there doesnt actually seem to be any damage. He just gets in their faces all the time and leaps on them when they're snoozing etc. Tango managed to scrape his face slightly (causing him to whimper for a second) but it doesn't seem to deter the little devil. So far he has destroyed a dog bed and my double ended lead and one dessert bowl (knocked it out of my hand). I have erected even more fencing and will be installing a farm gate at the side of the house and some more fencing further back from the front fence so that there are two layers of fencing/gates he has to get through to get out. He is a clever and determined little monster - he actually works out how to get things undone and managed to figure out how to open the front gate!!!! But fortunately I keep an eye on him so I've stopped him everytime and he doesn't really seem to want to go anywhere anyway. Earlier I took the dogs out to the car and he wouldn't get in it. He seems quite frightened of the car and he managed to slip out of my grip and into the street. Fortunately it's a quiet back street at the back of my house so there were no cars. I called him in my happy voice and started walking in the opposite direction - he immediately followed and ran over to me. I gave him a treat and kept walking then turned back toward the car. He kept following. I stopped near the car, gave him a treat and then grabbed his collar and led him to the car with lots of "good boy" noises. I thought maybe he didn't want to get in the back with my two because they keep snarling and snapping at him (LOL Fair enough!!). So I put him in the front passenger seat (I had to pick him up and shove him in!) but as soon as I walked away from the door to go round to the drivers side he leapt over into the back with the other two. Wierd. He leaps through the luggage net that I've used as a barrier for years at will, so I'm now in the process of shopping for a proper dog barrier. Geez! This dog!!!!! I'm also searching for a metal crate that doesn't cost the earth and doesn't charge half as much for delivery of the thing!!! Just took him on another off lead walk in a safe area. He was brilliantly well behaved and just followed Pepper and me wherever we went (Tango stayed on his lunge lead). Back at the house I let him out of the car and he went straight into the backyard without me having him on a lead. He also sleeps in the bedroom at night with no issues. He hasn't chewed up anything in my room or anwhere else (apart from fore-mentioned dog things). I'm probably going to call him Dylan. One interesting side effect of all this. Pepper and Tango seem to be drawing closer together.

That's fantastic!!

Like this you mean Link

I would go ahead if it's urgent but get in some Lectade for the future (specifically for pets). i have used Hydralyte for a dog when I had nothing else - but not a whole one - I gave my 30 k dally a half icy-pole in an urgent situation where he had collapsed with heat stroke. Hydralyte is fantastic stuff. It once got me through a severe toxic reaction to a spider bite. ETA - Do they have citrus in the orange flavour one? I cant remember and have run out of them. Thanks for the reminder to get some!!!

Someone on my street is selling a litter of "pitbulls" atm. They have a classy pitbull pups 4 sale sign on the footpath scrawled in black texta on cardboard. I looked at the house next to them when it was for sale and heard the occupants next door having a rather loud "conversation" that went along the lines of: Male - "shut the @##*up" Female - "No you shut the #@*$ up you *~*%$ing *%#@~" etc Poor pups.

I have no problem with what she did. And at least she targetted the right thing - ie the owner and NOT the dog. She shouldn't have to "wear" this! I think she was totally within her rights and didn't do any harm.

He should never have been given a dog in the first place and definitely should never have one again. They need a national register - like the "sex offender" but for moron dog abusers instead. What makes me sad is that when this idiot put the condom on him the dog LET HIM DO IT so he trusted him. The fact that he bit him later when he was trying to help get the thing off him is probably more to do with him being in pain ("agitated"!!!) than anything. Dogs trust people to do right by them - this is why to me it's one of the most heinous crimes for them to have that trust betrayed. And why I don't think people who do things like this to dogs can be trusted with any living being, animal or human. This guy though, at least TRIED to take the thing off him (If he's telling the truth of course) - it doesn't sound like he's one of those deliberately randomly cruel creeps, just an idiot who shouldn't be let near a dog.

Gosh - you guys are really good but there's just SO MUCH to choose from and I really don't have time to think about it. Can you just send me a mixed bag of teacup ones? I prefer chocolate or black and whites but anything will do coz I can always palm them off give them to friends as a Christmas present if I don't like them. How much would you want for that? ETA Have you got any with souls?

I don't believe him. He is saying he did it because the dog bit him - that just sounds like his defence council desperately coming up with anything he can to get him off. It's an obvious attempt to wriggle out of it - why beat the dog and leave the dogs mouth taped? He is an animal - no, that's insulting to animals. Sorry. He better get a jail sentence.

You have to wonder why the Presbyterians are so afraid of the idea that dogs could have souls and end up in heaven.

Thanks!! Its the shadow! lol Actually I just check the pic again, maybe a cat?? lol Nothing on his back he is all good lol I was just joking - I was pretty sure it was a cat behind him - which means he's got a good temperatment as he is hanging out with a putty tat

He is beautiful! er................. Is it my eyes or does he have an extra ear growing out of his back???

Those idiot commenters are blaming the dog owners and raving on about "this wouldn't happen if dogs were on leads/had their poo cleaned up" and what not. Flamin heck. The dogs aren't at fault here!!!!! The poisoners are but if they must try to blame "the victim" then it's the dog owners they have a problem with. So by their twisted idiotic "they asked for it" logic, shouldn't they be supporting the poisoning the dog owners and not the dogs???? Not that there's any logic in any of it of course.