Dogs4Fun

40# blade. :D I use a 15# ;) When clipping the hounds, it a 40 or nothing!

All dangly bits get the "all off" treatment here. 40 blade and a steady hand. Dogs neveer seem to fidget when you do this bit no matter how much the may fidget at other times.

Thank you - I really do feel stupid for having to ask but it's just his hair there is quite long there and sometimes I pick him up for cuddles and unwittingly get smeared with pee! :D :p Ok - next step get the courage up to actually do it I just zip it off with the clippers. Then clean the clippers ...

If you do you'll bugger up his aim!! Mine are all snipped off clean, and their aim is fine! ETA, the dogs that is

Just talked to my standard. He said is just sounds like a standard poodle doodle. :D

:D Yeah sounds like willy cheese to me.

Yes they have a witching hour, and yes you need to work through this. But if your dog is on your couch and doing things you don't accept (now or when she is grown up), then you need to look at your leadership and get her under control. There are lots of threads on leadership, NILIF etc that may be of use to you.

I enjoy heeling. There are so many bits of the behaviour to train. It is fascinating to watch the understanding develop. My current training dog loves heeling. My older dogs will throw heeling at me when running free in the park, as they know it will nearly always get a reward, a pat, or a release to a toy. I have trained heeling with my current dog with Dawn Jecks (spelling??) "Choose to Heel" method. Lots of rewards, lots of releases to toys. Simple things like asking a dog for a stationary heel position then throw a toy and release. Same on the move. This builds a fun element and gets a dog that pushes hard to get the position you are asking for. Up, forward and bouncy heeling.

One of my dogs went through a few years of not being to have bones (but is successfully back on them now). I used to brush his teeth 2 - 3 times a week. I tried with a finger brush, but found it hard to fit in his mouth. So I bought a childs electric toothbrush and used that. He got used to the noise and movement after a session a day for a week, then never made any fuss about it. I always used dog toothpaste. It doesn't do as good a job as bones, but keep his teeth in pretty good condition. ETA: I tried a whole lot of things before resorting to brushing. I found dentabones etc just got bitten into chunks and swollowed. I don't think they did anything for his teeth at all.

Wow, don't know how you have coped for this long without walks!

All my dogs, including the worlds softest dog ever, LOVE distraction training. But they have been taught that distration training is FUN. Lots of rewards, lots of chances to be right. No corrections in this phase of learning.

Bring him to my place, one of my Cairns can teach any dog to cock its leg to pee in a couple of days (my standard under his influence exclusively cocked his leg from about 4 months). But you may regret it ...

I have used the citronella sprays to keep my puppy away from the BBQ: he ate two covers off it before I clicked to the citronella, but now leaves it alone. But don't get the hideously overpriced tiny bottles from the pet shops. Go to a hardware store, and you can pay the same for a 5L bottle, with spray attachment. You WILL use a lot, as you will need to renew ever couple of days and after every rain.

You can see this in the clip.

Sound like your little one has turned the whole thing into a game. "I grab something then mum and dad chase me around to get it back off me". This is a favourite game puppies will play, but becomes a bad habit really quickly, and can result in a dog that steals everthing, just for a game. Whatever you do, DONT CHASE HER. You need to get her to come to you. You may need food, a very favorite toy (perhaps with squeakers etc). Anything that she will value more than the thing she has. Get her to came to you, take the item off her with NO FUSS. Get her to sit or whatever trick she knows. Wait a moment then give her the food or a quick game with the toy. Then do your best to limit her access to anything that may be harmful if swallowed until she learns that this is not a worthwhile game.

My "old" retired obedience and agility cairn is in his absolute prime at 12 years. As a foot warmer that is!! His best obedience work was at about 8 years, and his best agility work at about 7 years. My other recently retired obedience and agility cairn has a similar history, but did his best agility at 8 - 9 years (he's the "young" one at 10 years).

The "choose to heel" method (book by same name) creates a dog that LOVES to heel, and can find heel position again should something go wrong. All fun, all positive.

A dog is not a person and does not have a human's hangups about "jail". Dogs like a snug safe place to sleep and call their own. Look at most kennels. All of my dogs try to get into an open crate if there is one lying around the house, including my standard poodle trying to get into the little terriers' crates. "Head only mum, but I'm having a good time!" Make sure the dog learns the crate is a happy place, by making it comfortable (nice bed etc), and give her special toys or a bone etc that she can only have when she is in the crate. Start with short periods in the crate and build up the time. Like anything, quiet behaviour in a crate is something she needs to learn. The idea of uncovering and covering the crate but no verbal, physical or eye contact with the dog (post above) works well. As far as size goes, she needs to be able to stand up, lie down comfortably and turn around. Thats all. A oversized crate can cause problems. She will need to go to the toilet in the morning, but when YOU are ready to take her out. My pup can wait from bed time (10 ish) through to 8am or later if that suits us, but is usually given outside access earlier, as I am a morning person. Many dogs learn to sleep in a crate and stay in it with the door open (and mine often choose to during the day), but to my mind, if you expect them to stay in there anyway (and they are happy to do so), what is the problem with closing the door?

I know you are trying to do the right thing here, but she barks, you get up, and she gets what she wants. You. Out of bed. And her in the same space as you. You are training this behaviour and strengthening it every day. Waiting a few minutes while you are inside the door and she is outside the door is not teaching her to be quiet (or it would have worked by now). Its just part of the behaviour chain she has trained you in. I agree that crate training her and getting her to sleep inside in a crate may well be a good solution for you. Even initially crating here where she can see you so she doesn't need to bark to get in contact with her pack in the morning. Once she can be comfortable with this, then you can slowly move her out of sight, and slowly slowly near the back door, and then slowly slowly outside if she can cope with that. The other method is "extinction", something I have never had a lot of luck with. To be successful, she must NEVER get any reward for barking. No contact from you, no noise, no moving around the house, no yelling at her ... NOTHING. The theory is she will eventually learn that barking does not get her what she wants, and she will stop. I have a couple of problems with this. One: your neighbours will unlikely agree with the merits of this form of training, even with prior warning. Two: eventually, you will need to get out of bed to go to the toilet, go to work etc, and given your previous posts, this she will likely find this activity rewarding. Three: if you are like me, you will eventually snap and yell at her to be quiet, and this will reward her. The other thing I suggest you need to assess is her routine. Making her life more random may help reduced this attention demanding behaviour. If she doesn't expect a walk in the morning, she will be less insistent that it happen when she is ready. She needs to learn that good things happen to those who wait, and that good things can happen any time of the day (as long as her behaviour is good). Is there some reason why she cannot go in a crate and sleep inside at night in your household. At least for a few months until this problem is sorted out?

Well she is getting what she wants by her barking. Barking = owners get up and take her for a walk.

Mine love the basics: vegemite or peanut butter smeared inside. Not so good with white faces though! Pehaps some cheese and dog bickies mixed together and microwaved then cooled. Lots of great ideas on the web including the Kong site. Just remember to cut their main meals down by the same amount you put in the kong.

Hey poodle wrangler. We used a crate for our standard boy when he was a baby, and I am so pleased we did. It was a safe place for him to be when I had to be doing something else, when the other dogs needed some time-out from him, and just to teach him to settle and be quiet. And made toilet training a breeze! He slept in it originally but fairly quickly moved to sleeping on a sling bed in the "dog room" with the other dogs once he was clean over night. After he was castrated, we used his big trolley to keep him quiet for a few days, and the old training just clicked back in. In crate = quiet / sleeping time. And of course he is regularly in it a trials. He will barge past anyone to get into his trolley! So don't worry about using the crate. I am sure you won't be able to leave him in there for too long - standards have a way of getting into your life!

Very very cute

This behavious will NOT miraculously stop. Every time she bites you and you keep interacting with her, it is cementing in the fact that this is how you want her to interact with you. Lots of ways of dealing with this, and I sure you will get plenty of opinions on this one. I have had success with immediately redirecting the behaviour eg one bite and I would "yelp" like a puppy, move away (ie take away the contact she wants), then offer a toy she could bite. ie telling her that biting you is not OK, but biting this toy is OK. You can then play with her with the toy, but one touch of teeth on your hands, and the game is over, toy is away and she is in "time out" on her bed (or wherever). With this method, my puppy soon learnt that mouthy play was not OK. Its quite funny to watch now, if he gets over the top when playing and wants to bite something, he will break off the play to beat up a toy. I'm not a fan of alpha rolls. It is a very dominant thing to do to a dog, and can be dangerous. A dog that is already happy to bite you may end up biting your face in this position. Physically, do you really think you are strong enought do this to your dog anyway?

Have you been through the process of an elimination diet to see if she has a component of food sensitivity / allergy? I have two allergic dogs (atopic), neither of which had any response to elimination diets, nor got any worse with food challenges. It was a long, frustrating road, but at least I know that what I feed them is not contributing to their allergies, and I can focus on the factors I know are a probem.