clayton.lee

My dog has a favourite ball. It looks like this: It is not very durable. But it is only around $5, and he has had about 20 of them. And they were all his favourite thing. They have now suddenly disappeared from all stores, both online and in the real world. Because they don't last, he has rapidly run through his supplies. We have dug up every last bloody alphabet ball from the backyard. We found all the ones that had rolled under the seat of my car. We even found one that he had buried at his grand(dog)mothers house. I fear they have been discontinued for ever, and he will spend his remaining years pining for a cheap, disintegrating latex ball. From what I can find, they were a Petz Plus item, called "Latex Alphabet Ball", but I am having no luck tracking them down. Because you are on this forum, you understand that I would gladly spend $200 to buy him a lifetime supply of balls and ration them out once every six months. Actually - because you are on this forum you know that isn't true, and when I found them and they arrived I would put them all in his bed at once and let him roll around in them. So if you know where I might track these down, please let me know. If not for me, do it for Dougal.

That was my very first suggestion to my wife - lets just put him out of the bedroom and shut the bedroom door. She has currently ruled that one out. Maybe we need to revisit.

I have a 13 month old Cocker Spaniel x Poodle. He is a great little dog - cute as a button and very smart - it is me holding back his training - not him! He is a clicker trained, and I have given him the basics - sit/drop/stay/shake/leave it/come, and he is very good with all of those. So, onto the controversial bit. When we first got Dougal, I was insisting that he was not going to be allowed up on the bed in any circumstances. He is a full time inside dog, and I crate trained him when he was young. Over time, I have done a lot of reading and thinking, and my wife and I decided that he could be a "Sometimes" bed dog - he knows to ask permission before he gets up on the bed, and we would only have him on the bed before we went to sleep and in the morning when we were waking up. He learnt very quickly to sit and wait to be asked before he comes up on the bed. This degraded over time to him spending way too much time in the bed while we were sleeping, and us being generally disturbed and annoyed by him during the night. I would like to avoid making this a discussion of the pros and cons of letting a dog on the bed - I am happy that we are not experiencing any behavioural or dominance problems with him. The problem now is that we are trying to move back to a world where he only comes up before lights out, or in the morning after 7am or so. We have no problem kicking him out of bed at night - he trots off and goes to sleep on his matt, but then he comes back at round 3am or 4am to ask to come up on the bed. He will come up beside the bed and sit very loudly, and maybe wine a little. Sometimes he will pop a paw up on the bed to make sure we can see how well he is sitting. From the time that he decides that he wants to come up, he will come back every 20-30 minutes to ask. I don't want to give up having him in the bed - my wife starts work an hour earlier than me, and I love to have him up in the morning with me after she has gone. My wife loves to have him up snuggled in her legs when she is reading a book before bed. So we want to be able to have him up, but we are tired of him coming and asking to come up all through the night. So how do we train him to not ask anymore? I was thinking maybe much the same way that I taught him to "leave it" - ie let him sit and beg to come up as long as he wants, and then only ask him once he stops begging and walks away. Or maybe train him that he doesn't get invited up until he goes and lays on his matt. I don't want to go trial and error with things that aren't going to work though - I have already done enough to confuse him about when he can and can't go in the bed - so I am hoping to find a solid suggestion that I can go with confidently. I look forward to any suggestions! Clayton

Thanks for the advice. The lads got on like a house on fire, sometimes they needed to be separated, but in the end they slept out of pure exhaustion. Dougal was especially happy with his new pillow.

I have a 4 month Cocker Spaniel X. He made good friends with a Pug at puppy school, and after a couple of play-dates we have ended up puppy sitting the pug for two nights. He got here at about 4.30pm this afternoon, and the two have not stopped since, running in circles jumping on each other, barking, rolling, just having a puppy old time. We had a timeout while my wife and I went and played basketball - our Cocker stayed in the bedroom and had a sleep in his crate while the Pug got downstairs with the door open for outside access. The seem completely incapable of settling down for a rest. Logic tells me that eventually they must - but once either of them lies down for a moment, the other one runs up and starts the shenanigans again. I am going work from home tomorrow to supervise the little demons, but tomorrow night we both have to be out for about 3 hours, and I don't trust our boy to necessarily be able to hold his bladder in the bedroom, which has until now been an accident free zone. So the questions - will they ever stop and rest (logic tells me they must), and are there any pitfalls to leaving them on their own? They get on perfectly well, there is very little growling and yelping, just lots of running, chasing, wrestling and chewing.

I have a 12 week old puppy. Last night we tried him out with a Pigs Ear, as we are looking for something to occupy him while we are out. It definitely occupied him - he loved it! When it came to bed time, he was in our bedroom on the floor (he sleeps in a crate by the bed) chewing on the remains of his pigs ear. I went to pick up his pigs ear to put it in his crate for him - he dropped it when I bent down but then growled and had a little snap at my hand when I went to pick it up. Later, in a very similar situation with him chewing on the pigs ear on the floor, I decided to pick up the pup instead of the ear to keep my hand out of sharp puppy teeth territory - when I did so he was very similar - a very low aggressive growl. This is the first real sign of aggression/food guarding he has shown, but I want to nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem. I already hand feed him a lot of kibble/treats (lots of click training). I am thinking of spending more time with him while he is eating from his bowl (wouldn't be hard - he only takes about 20 seconds) I am also thinking that it would probably be the go to give him something good, like a bone or a pigs ear, and then offer him a better treat (liver, chicken jerky) etc to get him to associate putting down his thing to get something better - maybe after a while associating it with a word to release whatever he is eating. I would love to hear any suggestions, I want to get on top of this before it becomes an issue. Clayton

I have a new puppy (9 weeks) and have just started click training. He is doing very well with sitting (although the command hasn't quite got there yet), and I have also started click training his toileting. This is going very well, he has gone from wandering and sniffing for 15 minutes on the first night to peeing pretty much the moment his feet hit the ground and I tell him to "go pee". The question I have is with number twos. Sometimes he seems like he can't quite (to be a little too descriptive) pinch one off, so he goes, has a bit more of a sniff and goes again. Now I am not sure when to click and treat him on this - I suspect if I click as he starts to go it will distract him. If I wait until I am absolutely sure he is done (probably 15 seconds) I am sure it is well past the time for him to associate the act with the click. So I guess that leaves me clicking when I *think* he is done - any input from anyone? Clayton