Mrs Rusty Bucket

Sammy's mum is lurking but she can't post here any more. And she can't read PMs from here either. And Sammy can't wait for the next event...

I think I could do Sunday 30th June - no hockey that day for my team. But otherwise Saturdays are crap for me. I'd never make it back to town in time for the game.

That's horribly sad. And nice of you to use your gear. I think I would have borrowed some stuff from the petfood isle...

In Feb I stayed at The Bear house (that's the restaurant) the motel is a separate business called "Mahogany motel" and it sucks profoundly. No dogs allowed inside, though how they'd know beats me. The room was dirty, the kitchen stuff was not clean (how they expect businessmen and tradies to wash up reliably is beyond me), there were dead insects and huntsmen and other spiders all along the places where walls meet floors and some flat surfaces. The carpet stinks. And there were possum fights on the roof each night, and one morning, a dead possum (ring tail) at my door step. YUCK. They only "clean" a room if you hang a sign up but they don't really clean, I had to get the manager out to vaccuum up the excess dead bugs. There were also fights or very loud screaming matches ending in "I QUIT" from the back of the restaurant (11pmish), which was directly opposite the majority of motel rooms. I thought the rooms at Fourth Furlong across from the racecourse - while the whole place looks bland, and the manager smokes, the rooms - were cleaner and they allow dogs in. Well they don't but they don't turf you out if you cheat, just as long as you or your dog don't trash the place. The manager has a dog and a lot of customers going to KCC Park. These rooms also have a kitchenette, fridge and cooking space and are $60 a night cheaper than Mahogany Motel. Sigh. http://fourthfurlong.budgetmotelchain.com.au/ They were full up when I was in Vic, or I would have gone there too. I'd be very tempted to try Frankston next time though. Traffic, even at 6:30am over a very short distance was still a nightmare. I couldn't believe that Mahogany could charge over $150 pn and be a whole lot scummier than the $90 per night place. PS this is the poodle club list. http://www.poodleclubofvictoria.com/accommodation.htm

my dog can be quite stressed about me going out, and when she's stressed she won't eat anything and she won't play with her toys. She either sleeps, sulks?, or screams. She's pretty much quit screaming - because I won't go to her if she's yelling. Ie if your dog is yelling when you get home, don't let it in until it stops. The first time - that stop might be for a fraction of a second but only let your dog back in when it stops yelling. And gradually lengthen the time. The other thing about getting home - my dog stays inside, so I let her out the back, go out with her, and completely ignore her until she has done a 1 and ideally a 2 (depending how long since the last one). She knows she's not getting any attention from me until she's "performed"... But to prevent upset neighbours you might want to do a couple of things... 1. take your dog round to meet them all and let them know to let you know if they have any problems and listen to them if they relate anything and say you're trying a new training system for a while so it could be noisy, and could they let you know how that goes... (go back and ask them after a day or so). 2. keep the dog (confined) inside when you're out. Chances are she's going to stress and not do anything - given she doesn't play with her toys... but if she yells, it will be muffled and annoy the neighbours less. again don't make a fuss when you leave. If there is some uber treat you can leave with her when you go, that might work, but my dog wouldn't eat those until I got home - until fairly recently. And the other trick (?) I've done is to be extremely forgetful when I go. I go, I forgot my sunnies, go back, go, forgot phone, go back... go, forgot my notebook, calculator, coat, chair, whatever... I don't talk to my dog or pay her any attention when I go back in, I just go in get what I forgot, and go again... PS sometimes I drive round the block and go back cos I forgot my hat or to check the back door is locked etc.

A slightly higher risk than 1 in 1000 is quite high given how many dogs are actually out there. That's a lot of potentially affected dogs, and a nasty way to die.

those kids will probably break the bamboo jumping in...

I met someone with a Great Dane that could not get a front attach harness to fit her dog, because of the shape of it's chest. She was using a prong collar with great success and control. But the handler needs to be taught how to use one of these correctly. The head halter is great for controlling where a dog is looking - ie getting it's attention back if it gets distracted. When I used one (gentle leader) I found I had to put the lightest lead that I could find on it - because anything more put too much pressure on my dog's nose and she'd shut down. Which meant I also travelled with a second lead - attached to the front attach harness or flat collar - just in case - because I didn't feel the light lead was strong enough or chomp proof - ie it wouldn't last long against my scissor mouthed dog. The idea with both the head halter and the front attach is to train the dog to walk with loose lead under the most extreme distractions you can think of, and then phase them out.

I think if you set up a crate in the room it would be hard to keep any child under the age of 6 out of it... I think we called them "cubbies"

I've seen dogs wearing kiddies singlets...

I'm just lucky "good job" and "good dog" sound really similar... And I've been known to yell "yes", "yes", "yes" - as well as "good job/dog" when someone does a good play on the hockey field.

It was really cold last night. What about a doona igloo you could stitch up a bag out of a cheap doona? I sometimes use a wheat bag - because I figure not too much harm if my EH decides to dig it up and chew on it, but it wouldn't be very warm by 4am.

My dog (when she was a puppy) chomped several of the webbing leads in to pieces. Took her about three chomps / seconds to set herself free. Mouth like scissors. So I got a (cotton) rope lead (or a few of them) from an equestrian supplies shop. One of them has been chomped through by her friend the bull terrier, but I tied that up and it's still good today. Makes a nice knot handle. And the rope is very soft on my hands and easy to hold I tie a few figure 8s along the length of it for grip, when holding or standing on the rope, a knot helps. So still got all those leads. The clips sometimes clag up at the beach but I can rinse the sand out in the salt water and they work again and then I rinse them out in fresh water when I get home and maybe add a spray of vegie oil and they're fine. A friend got us a nice nylon lead from cheap as chips. She broke the plastic suage/clamp thingy on that one. So I was left with a bit of slippery rope and no attach points and dog nicked off. Argh. http://www.saddleworldsydney.com.au/listprod-535/stable-grooming/leadropes/index.html

My dog is generally fine with friendly dogs approaching, she goes into a crawl and lets them sniff and then invites them for play (sometimes) Weims can be very rude, they tend to approach direct and fast. But they can also be put off, by standing tall, between your dog and them, and yelling fiercely. If the owner lets their dog approach a dog they don't know like this, the owner is clueless too, so you cannot expect any help there. If you're sure about friendly and don't mind rewarding (encouraging) rude behaviour, you can chuck a large handful of treats in the approaching dog's face and pick up your dog and leave before the other dog is done finding the treats. If you're sure about unfriendly and treats and yelling don't work, then you have to decide whether the approaching dog will attack a human (you) and whether you're prepared to let that happen to defend your dog. And then things get really nasty. The more noise you can make to attract help and attention the better. I've been lucky, only one dog and it was a whippet x (small) ignored the angry human (me), but I was big enough to get it off my dog. Other dog fights - where my dog is not involved, I've not been able to do much except stop my dog from cheerleading.

I've seen some dogs that love obedience. And I think it has a lot to do with the skill and timing of the trainer. Pavlov's dogs used to drag on their leads to the laborartory cos that's where dinner was. I've seen loads of dogs that clearly are having no fun at obedience, and they don't get anything after "exercise completed" either.

Congrats TSD and RubyStar. I didn't do any dog stuff this weekend apart from long walk on the beach Saturday. Played 30 seconds of hockey (I was filling in and left my mouthgard at home - oops), did a nice intercept and pass, setting the ball into attack... and then subbed off. We won lots to nothing. Against Port Adelaide (which is always nice). And then I umpired the next game which was not as much fun. Team of my friends who back chat, and its about time I started sending them off.

I find the thing that puts me off obedience the most is you can't praise your dog until after the judge says "exercise complete" ie you lose points for chatting with your dog. My dog likes to know she's doing good. At the moment weave poles consist of 12 yeses. Still working on that one. have a read of the rules. Going to other trials first or mock trials is good - because you get a feel for the "Language" of the event and interpretation of the rules. That's the other thing I like about agility over obedience. Agility has very few parts where it's down to judges opinion (eg contacts) and you can make those really easy for them to get right. Obedience, however... a bit subjective, so while there's obvious things that can go wrong (like failing to recall), how many points you get can depend on things that are less obvious. And I watched one judge who seemed to be scoring a dog relative to its own performance ie if it did somethings brilliantly and other things less brilliantly but better than everyone else in the comp, it still scored less on those things than everyone else in the comp - because they weren't as good as the dog clearly showed in some segments of the course it could do well. Ie the dog was scored against itself, not the other competitors. Very odd.

I know that NILIF works - I'm not very good at it but if my dog is being a serious PITA boundary pusher, I step up the program of work for everything you get. Pats, food, couch space, everything. She doesn't like being on my bed - cos it's not very comfy. It keeps moving and catapulting her off. I think she got the idea that my bed was not for her one morning when she decided to try putting all four paws against me and pushing. She fell off the bed.

Even Cesar Milan is being converted to reward based training... Or more stuff from Professor John Bradshaw: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/17/dog-training-john-bradshaw-animal-behaviour

I think training and learning is for life. For puppys, dogs, humans... Even if the owner doesn't formally train the puppy, it's still learning... But if you were having a set course - then you'd want to get groups that were matched to age appropriate training, ie what is good for a puppy at 8 weeks - might not be so good for a 4 month old, and vice versa. You may also want to have a beginners class - maybe once a week for 4 weeks - so you don't have more experienced puppies and humans having to start over every time someone new shows up.

Like button for Sas's post. Most excellent offer!

Adelaide dog (yellowgirl) on Payneham road have just announced on their facebook page - they can now supply black hawk holistic. I was wondering what I was going to do when the stuff I brought back with me from the GD seminar in Victoria ran out.

That reminds me of the time when our heeler x kelpie met the door stop that looked like a mouse in a bonnet with glasses and a frilly dress (wrapped around a brick). My dad made the mistake of animating the mouse by pushing it at the dog - who freaked out and got very excited about it. And later when we weren't paying attention the dog went upstairs and murdered the mouse in it's new home next to my parent's bedroom door. Sigh. My dog spends hours stalking mice and other critters in my back yard, like that dog was. Ie the funny one foot at a time thing. If she thinks something is "wrong" eg beach umbrella, she barges up to it, stops about 2m out, and barks in circles around it.

Mr Stompy I had similar problems with my dog - going for a walk from home to the park - she'd freak out and would not take any kind of treat - no matter how yummy she normally found it. For her - not taking food - is a measure of how stressed she is. If she will take a treat, she's pretty comfortable about where she is, if she won't - it's because she's stressed out or highly distracted (look at that cat / LAT cat). You can use the something else more exciting as the reward (if it's safe) eg a bit of nice heeling, and reward with "go sniff" and enough loose lead to do so. If your dog can do a nice recall away from other dogs, you can reward with "go play". Ie pay attention to anything your dog finds interesting or exciting and if its safe to do so - use those things to reward him. And only let him have those things with your permission. And if you feel he can't recall away from whatever exciting thing it is at your current level of training - just go get him and put him back on lead - don't break your recall word or his name by calling over and over when he's not likely to come. With exciting things like cats - it goes something like - from a safe distance where he can still pay attention to you - "Look at the cat" (treat), look at me - (treat), look at that (cat) (treat) etc. Lesley McDevitt in "control unleashed" (aka CU) has a good description of how to use distractions like cats (and joggers and bicycles etc) as training opportunities. Or you can google LAT CU dog game.

Hi staffyluv That looks great with your dog paying you attention when her friend is trying so hard to distract her. You are right though, that success is not the same as at the dog park, so you need a plan where you can train and test your training - with a reasonable chance of success. Usually the easiest way is to be further away, test on lead and if that's going well - test once off lead and then if successful, praise and put her back on lead while you're ahead, and play some games on lead - so it's not a bad thing. Hopefully the trainer can give you a plan for transition back to the real world.