!Kristen!

Thanks for correcting me

With mine, they wont touch the expensive stuff like smakos (sp? definitely wrong) and things like that. But bring out a cube of cheese and watch those ears prick

Ohh they are really cute photos Chezzyr. Glad she found her inner puppy

Chanel never really did have much interest in toys. Maybe its the same case with your collie aswell?? Cuddles and Kisses are just as fun though :D Maybe handstands are the way to go if its really important to you that she gets some playing time. Are acrobats to much trouble to purchase? Have you got any other animals? Maybe if you can get them playing she might become interested to. I know something that really gets chanel in a playfull mood is when i tumble toby around and make funny noises. As soon as I do this she is ready and keen to play, i guess jelousy works both ways. Even if you dont have another pet why not organize a play date, Chanel loves meeting up with her four legged friends. Sorry i cant be of much help.

We put our dogs onto supercoat a while ago and have noticed a HUGE difference in their condition. I personally find Supercoat to be fantastic.

Very interesting reading all of your methods Its clear the positive reinforcement is pretty much a universal thing. Works well with most, and possibly all dogs IMO

Each dog has their own personality, and no 2 dogs are alike. So theres no wonder that there are so many different kinds of techniques and styles of training. What im interested to know is what works best with you and your dogs? Our 3 dogs have 3 completely different personalitys. Therefore each dog works best with different methods. Yes this can be ABSOLOUTLY confusing for me as their trainer. But it seems to be no problem for them, infact i think it may even be easier for them as they each respond to different techniques and don’t get confused when they are all together. I know all of you training buffs are thinking, what the?? Is this girl crazy. Hehehehehe. But that’s what works best for me With Chanel I use a form of clicker training. Its been modified specificly for a less confident dog. Its fantastic because she loves it, and it works so well. Chanel is the type of dog that will only respond to a calm and quite voice. The slightest negative tone will put her completely off. Each week I sit down and organize a training setion. I write down exactly what behaviours we are going to work on and make sure that in my head I know EXACTLY what im going to do. That way I don’t confuse her and things can run smoothly. Every month I test her, we go through the behaviours that were set during the course of the month. I record the results and I then start to figure out what needs to be done. Whether shes ready for a new behaviour, or if there are still things to be worked on. Toby is using a simple training method. But absoloutly NO food rewards. A mistake I made with chanelw as beginning training her with food rewards and not a combination. I was just lucky that chanel was the type of dog that aims to please, and it was easy enough to wean her off food rewards. However Toby has a completely different character. He doesn’t exactly aim to please, he just aims to do what he likes lol. That’s why I have to use a specific ‘training’ voice with him. The others only need to be told once, but with toby you need to be firm and completely clear with what you want from him, otherwise he will just go crazy and get out of control. And that’s defiantly not what I want

Suprisingly toby needs baths more often then Chanel does. And chanel is long haired. We bath all of the dogs together every 4 months with spongebaths in between. However we bath toby every month, and sponge baths in between.

We only put a coat on our older dog monique (miniature poodle) because she has a short cut and can get a bit cold in the winter months. Also, mianly because shes getting sick, the poor old darl has every ilness under the sun. Its a nice fleece coat that keeps her nice and warm, she doesnt like it all that much, but its important that she stays warm. The other 2 tend to huddle together when its cold, toby will never need a jacket because chanel is his big fur coat

Something interesting that our vet told us is that frontline only works properly if it is used to a minimum. If frontline is used more then necassary the fleas will eventually become immune to the product. Not quite sure about all of the technical things, but im sure that the vets here on DOL would be able to provide you with more info

mine love supercoat. They scoff it down like crazy and now will not eat anything else. Have noticed a really big change in their coats since we changed over aswell....they look so much healthier

Thinkign of you lynne ;) She was a very beautifull girl, and she continues to watch over you. social~butterfly

double post

Ana bsoloutly beautiful poem, thank you so much for sharing ;)

yeah we use toys aswell :D i found that they work great for an energetic puppy like toby

this isnt a question, just a poll to see what others use. edited to ad: yes chanel was not taught properly. She was my first dog so i was bound to make a mistake. Just like anyone who is starting off with training a dog (for the first time).... there are always things that you would like to start over. same with chanel, but yes we are doing some training to help her calm down a bit. she only gets a food reward after she has done a new behaviour or after the training session is over. The rest of the time she gets a PR. She is slowly getting better.

Pro's and Con's of food reward I have always trained my dogs using a food reward because its easier and also more effective for a food obsessed dog. But the BIG problem with food rewards is that the dog grows to expect the food and when they dont get the food as a reward they give up. I also find thta the dog becomes dependent on food for training. Pro's and Con's of positive rewards (i.e hugg's and lots of attention) I just started this with our newest boy toby. I have found it much more effective and it helps join a bond between handler and dog. Toby is now so responsive when we ask him to do something, with or without food, were as with chanel i find that she is only really enthusiastic with a food reward. What do you (Mainly) use as a reward? though this would be and interesting topic so see how it go's...

I am so sorry to hear this Sending you lots of warm HugGs ;) Watch this beautiful flash show, it will bring tears in your eyes, but you will feel better ;) http://www.indigo.org/rainbowbridge_ver2.html

oh yeah and chanel told me to say.... thanx everyone so much!! now im poo free!!! Give me 5

Hi all! thank you all for your help. I attempted to remove the poo today, and it was a sucess(spelling?). Now that i have the hang of it i will definitly do it more often. It is now a part of her daily grooming routine. I used the peanut butter trick she was so interested in the peanut butter she diddnt even move the slightest when i lifted her tail. It took a good 20 minutes (with plenty of breaks in between) BUT WE DID IT!!! here is a photo of her lickin off the remains of the penut butter. p.s~ i diddnt post a pic of her beautifully clean bottome, for her sake and for yours

This may be a stupid question but what is crutching?

I groom her every 3 days (at the least) for about 5 minutes. What i meant when i said that i only groom that area every 3 weeks was that i only groom under her tail around every 3 weeks. This is because my mum helps me with the dificult spots. And she sets aside a day every three weeks for dog grooming time, meaning monique (poodle) gets a hair cut, bayleas nails are cut and all of the dogs get flea treated. Other than that i do all of the grooming myself. Thank you for the advice. And in response to tess- I groom chanel outside in the garage. She sits patiently while i groom her. The only difficult thing for me was to make her stand as she has been trained to sit when groomed *my mistake ". Another thing- the peanut butter trick is a good idea, i remember reading about it on DOL aswell. I will definatly give that a try 2morrow!!

thanx for that, very helpfull. Good to hear from fellow collie owners. There stuborn little (well not little) things arnt they lol but i love em, wouldnt trade for anything else in the world!!!!

We used to use chum for our dogs but i think that its time for a change. I have heard so many different things about so many different dry foods that im really confused. Does any one use Eukanuaba (spelling?) ? I have a fealling that chum sint very good for the dogs. They have been loosing a lot of weight since we switched to chum. Any info would be apreciated cheers kristen

OMG how did he possibly manage that??? wouldnt it be uncomfortable for the dog???