lovemesideways

My second training video is now up! How to teach your dog to bow.

Just curious, Am I wrong in thinking that there is pretty much No way that your dog associated that wee with being told off? Unless you literally caught him in the act of peeing, he wouldn't have associated -peeing inside- with being told No.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx

Totally helped by the fact that Rover kept edging closer in hopes of treats or pats whenever you where in his vicinity.... and Riddick for that matter!

My lab Rover is certified delta pet therapy dog My mum takes him weekly to a nursing home, manly hospital and the sydney childrens hopsital.

I think there are much better ways to train a dog than by spraying them in the face with water. Especially with young puppies. Your dog "shying" away when you show them the bottle, is not something I would be proud of. Its like saying "when I pick up the newspaper and he cowers, he knows he's done something wrong" Having my dog be afraid of me, is never something I want.

I think your right, she always tries to get our attention by barking, so we always turn away from her and ignore her till she stops - but she does continue running like a crazy puppy and jumping till she is panting, which cant be good for her. just a question about removing her - overnight and when we are not home she stays in her playpen so I am trying to keep that as a positive place for her, so I am worried if she barks and I put her in there she might think its punishment and dislike going in there. Its the same as a kid who gets sent to their room when they've done something bad. it isn't the place that's the bad thing, its their action that they remember. She'll associate barking with being sent away from her family. The pen just happens to be the place she'll be put. Dogs are sociable, they want to be with their pack, a time-out works on the principle of, you do something we don't like, you don't get to be with us!

This can turn into a dog that becomes shy or fearful of spray bottles.And seeing as Mindy is supposed to be becoming a guide dog, fear of anything will equal her failing. (extreme case scenario, but still plausible) As a general rule of thumb, I don't think a dog ever does something for no reason. There is always a reason behind what they do, even if we as humans have no clue what it is, there is a reason. In the case of you bringing her back inside after taking her to toilet, I would think that the barking is a attention seeking behaviour. "Look at me, pay attention to me, why are you ignoring me when you should be paying attention to me!!" Shushing, telling her no, even spraying her in the face with water can all equal attention, so the behaviour is in part, getting rewarded. "Yes if you bark, you get attention." A more effective way of dealing with it, would be to simply remove her. Have a area somewhere, and if she barks, "Woops too bad you barked, you don't get to be with me!" and you remove her to the other room. Then when she has been quiet for a minimum of 10 seconds. No whining or barking, you bring her back out again.

Young girls are prone to loving their puppies a little too much. It may seem like harmless interaction to you, but being constantly loved, hugged, kissed, patted. Well think about it, it can get annoying! Maybe your puppy is just a little sick of the attention, and its getting to the point where he feels like he needs to say "Back off, this is my time" I agree with Nekhbet, there has got to be rules. You say move, he moves. No questions asked.

Every time I go out! I was walking around the outside of the local shopping center today, training Riddick on lead. "Who's a clever boy? You are! You're SO clever yes you ArE" Group of guys walk past, smirking.. Well he is a clever boy.

They must be the same sort of people that we see at the off-lead park claiming that their hyperactive crossbreed is as fast as, or even faster than a greyhound. Then they let their dog off lead and it madly races across the park as fast as its luxating little legs can carry it while Coconut runs rings around it at a very gentle gallop. I can just see her, rolling her eyes as she easily passes the madly running cross.

I put a pile of my clean washing on top of Rovers crate one day when he was a puppy, then went out to lunch. Came home to find him fast asleep amongst a pile of knickers and shirts that he had spent the past hour and a half happily pulling through the crate wires.

He probably had a fantastic game of it all! Destruction is just so much fun!

Whether for the money or not, you chose to breed for colour as your highest priority. Instead of being able to choose from the best labrador available at stud, you restricted yourself to the best chocolate labrador, eliminating all of the yellow or black dogs that may have had better temperaments or may have been a better match for your girl. Yellow or black are not considered faults, so there is no reason not to consider using them if you are really breeding to improve the breed. You say you had to have a choc to choc mating to maximise your chances of getting your choc girl, but what were the chances of getting any other colour from that mating? Well said. Personally I don't agree with breeding for a specific colour. On a interesting note, the breeder I got Riddick from is slowly eliminating Yellow Labs from her lines all together. I don't know all her reasons behind it, but one of them is she wants to improve the colour of the chocolate labs. Hers are this really rich deep chocolate colour, quite stunning actually, where as I've noticed a lot of the chocolate labs you see around tend to be more of a flat brown. She isn't doing it for profit as her dogs mainly go to guide dogs anyway.

Recall! Leave it - Meaning whatever you have in your mouth (food, stick, toy, dog.), Spit it out!

Rather than blanket banning it, I think that it would be really fantastic if instead they could find a way to source rescue dogs through pet stores in a way that everyone would accept. I don't think its the solution, its not going to stop trading post, or internet sales, but changing where those puppies come from instead could be Huge.

Rover figured out how to unscrew it and get the treat of one side. Smart little bugger..

Conversation I had today. "What kind of dogs are they?" *Points at my 2 black labs.* "Labrador retrievers" "Oh my friend has a labrador x golden retriever too, but I prefer pure breds" *snooty expression* my reply, "No, the full name for a labrador is a Labrador Retriever. That is the breed, they are purebred" "........ No I think you're wrong" *face palm* :D I Don't take offence though. Its just funny.

Nothing to do with Bondi Vet.... Right... So who's the main guy on Bondi Vet? Snort..

Gotta say that something good came from this. I linked this in my facebook, and added some comments about puppy farms. Friend of mine noticed the link, looked them up and was disgusted! He had no idea that pet store puppies came from places like that. So if people can learn something from this, I don't really think it can be that bad?

Yeah I've been wondering if even negative feedback it still attention in his mind. Negative attention is attention. Ignore the unwanted behaviour. See if it changes or extinguishes. When he's on lead, if he whines as another dog approaches us, to you reckon that just continuing the walk and not allowing him to sniff, that tug he might feel on his collar could count as attention?

Yeah I've been wondering if even negative feedback it still attention in his mind.

I don't know if I've really clicked with a breed. I adore my labradors, and really can't ever imagine being without a smexy black lab to eat me out of house an home but I've never really met a breed and just gone googoo eyed over it... YET

So my Labrador Riddick is almost 7 months now (he's getting so big ) and I've noticed him doing this thing recently, and am wondering why. It has only been recently, in the past month or so. He will be standing there, looking at another dog that is usually a few meters away, and he gives a deep whine. Now he does this on lead and off lead. Neither time does he ever attempt to pull towards the dog, or run up to the dog. He never gets attention when he does it, except maybe me saying "ah!" once or twice. He also never gets to go towards the dog hes staring at when he whines. It seems like a attention seeking thing, he wants to go an sniff the other dog. Or maybe just voicing his displeasure over not being allowed to go and greet the other dog? Even when off lead he isn't allowed to go and greet dogs without my ok. (At the off lead dog park or beach.) though this is a work in progress.. So why do you think he does it? Think it will be a behaviour that will eventually pass since it never achieves anything?