alexandrite

Oh I'm positive that Charlie isn't trying to sexually molest these puppies... Maybe he is just confusing all the other lab puppies now, with his one puppy-friend who didn't mind that game? I tell him "NO" or "OI" which for us is kind of the same as your "agh" when I drag him off them, so I'm hoping that he'll get the idea soon that all Lab puppies are not the same and to leave these three alone

My Cocker Spaniel, Charlie, seems to have developed an attraction to Labrador puppies - and ONLY labrador puppies! Can anyone please explain why the heck he does this? A friend of ours recently got a male Labrador puppy, and he was about the same size as my spaniel when they met, so they were playing chasing each other, wrestling around, and taking turns humping one another. I think my spaniel finally found someone his own mental age, haha. Now, my Charlie is definitely desexed (by the RSPCA, over half a year ago), so I think he only does this as a behaviour/dominance thing, as dogs sometimes do. I don't think he's purposely trying to be a puppy-molester...! We've recently moved, and at the new dog park that we now go to, there is a couple that has 3 gorgeous Labrador puppies, around the same age as Charlie's puppy friend that is owned by our friend. Whenever we meet them at the dog park, Charlie recognizes them as being Labrador puppies, the same as the other one... and starts humping them too!!! Now, while our friend's pup knew it was a game, these ones don't really want to play this game. Charlie ONLY does it to the Labrador puppies, not to any Labrador adults or any other dog at the dog park. Just these three poor pups. Now, he was being actually rather annoying yesterday, and the owners of the pups drag Charlie off their pups by the collar - if I can't run over quickly enough to retrieve him myself. (it's a BIG dog park.) One of the pups was sitting with his owner on a bench, and Charlie ran right into their personal space and onto the bench, to try to hump the puppy. I apologised profusely for my rude dog and took him off to distract him with some jumping and agility instead. Does anyone have any idea why Charlie now molests every Lab puppy he sees, and how do I teach him to stop? He is desexed so there's no danger of Labraspaniels running around in anyone's future. I just don't want him to annoy the other dog owners

When I took my sick pet rat on her last journey to the vet, I got a lot of support and hugs from the whole team there. (I couldn't stop crying!) A few days later I received a lovely card in the mail, signed by the whole team at the vet clinic. It started the tears all over again, but they really were lovely people and it's a great gesture. They knew how much people love their pets, even such small and short-lived pets as a rat!

My Mom is a biologist and that's what she always said too - that dogs and cats eat grass when they're feeling unwell and want to cleanse their stomachs a bit or get rid of a hairball by vomiting it out. She plants grass for her 2 cats in winter (in Canada) so they can have access to it year-round. My Cocker Spaniel does eat grass at times, and I have seen it in his vomit when he wasn't feeling well, but just as often it seems to go through and come out from the other end as well...

Yes indeed I am Cool - you should come to a DOL meet! We have a few in Brissy Which obedience club are you thinking of joining? I have been going to Metro at Chermside for a few years now Oh! Really? I'd love to find out when and where these are! Sounds like fun for the dogs and their humans We're moving to Runcorn, so the club closest to us there will be the Southside Dog Obedience Club. Have you heard anything about them by any chance? I've only just found out about them really.

Yes indeed I am

Yep, "find the kibble" is Ava's favourite game! She doesn't even touch her Kong until every last bit of kibble has been devoured. Sometimes she gets kibble thrown on her when she gets in the way, then she goes crazy trying to get it out of her fur You just have to be careful the ants don't find it, it also attracts birds, but Ava is so obsessive about getting it all that we don't have a problem. Yes this is something we do to give Charlie his breakfast just before we leave the house, we do a little bit of training with him first and then scatter the rest of his breakfast kibble on the lawn as we go out the door. I love watching his nose in full sniffing mode! He also seems to find everything before any kind of ants or birds can get to it.

Oh - rearranging stuff is a gun-dog thing? Okay, so my dog is normal, he's just a talented Interior Designer? (or exterior, in this case, SOON to be interior) LOL good to know! He really doesn't seem to DO much with the things he moves, thankfully, if I find him just after the relocation of objects has happened, he just lies on them, and then leaves them there, lol. I assumed it was because he's bored. (The only other dog I had is the poodle that I grew up with, and she was also a rescue but so timid that she never even touched anything without permission. The poor girl had to be restored to having confidence in herself again after the awful people we rescued her from.) We're actually moving soon, and one of the first things we found out is there is an obedience training class near the new place (with convenient hours for us!) and a great dog park with all sorts of agility things. Our "old" dog park only has a couple of trees... nothing to entertain a dog with. I'm looking forward to bringing him to the new park! Here's the silly puppy himself:

That is actually really interesting, I'll have to try this with my Charlie the cocker spaniel! Except he's not a pup, he's 3 years old lol... He is also a furry little "steam train" - excited about everything! - and we're also always stopping, turning around, using check chain and harness etc etc and it can be quite frustrating to walk him. May I ask, what exactly do you do on your 5min training sessions during your walk? Sit/stay/come practice etc? Or something different?

I was going to say this too - shaping is a great way to build retrieval skills. Only problem is it can also end up with constant offering of the behaviour and you end up having to put all the toys away or they get dropped in your lap every 2 minutes. As someone else said though - be patient. Sometimes it can take a little while for you to work out how to play with them. My girl is a MAD retriever, but it took quite a few months for us to get it together. I'm sorry, but what does shaping mean in this case? I'm sorry if that's a stupid question. I'm relieved to hear that someone's dog also took a while learning to retrieve/fetch things. Charlie had no initial interest in the ball whatsoever, so even progressing to him catching it some of the time is progress for us I am not limiting him to just fetching games, heck I'd love to play any game with him. It's just figuring out what it is he might like... There are also some opinions online that tug-of-war games and chasing games are not good for the status/authority of the human in the dog's eyes if the human becomes something to chase? What are the thoughts on this? It's funny, at the dog park, some owners come to the park to throw a ball around for their dogs to fetch. Their fetch-trained dogs think the ball is fantastic, and run after it - Charlie runs after the dogs because he wants to play with THEM, and barks when the other dog is not at all interested in anything other than the ball! We were hoping that he'd get the idea from watching them, but, nope :D

I would like him to learn how to play to tire him out, of course, and give him some fun. What are some of the ways you play with your dog, involving food? We hand-feed him so we turn each meal into a training session where he earns every bit of food by doing something for it. (Sit, stay, stop, drop, up, etc etc. We're working on "roll over" now.) I think we could try teaching him some new commands though... (I've got to go to work now, thank you all for your responses so far! I will try to answer more when I get home)

He works through a Kong stuffed with peanut butter and treats within half an hour maximum, and once he's done he ignores it completely. Other than that he doesn't have much, he seems to be food-motivated not toy-motivated or doesn't associate toys = fun. If we leave his Kong or balls out, they'll be in the same place when we come back. We've tried squeaky-balls, he's actually afraid of them! It's probably why he's taking things off the chairs etc - he's making toys out of these other things, but he won't pay attention to actual dog toys. I'd love to be able to play with him, he just doesn't know how. Because he's adopted, we're not sure about his past, and he came to us only knowing "sit" and nothing else. We've been training him and he knows some more commands now, but still a lot to learn. It really seems like the person who had him before us, didn't pay much attention to him at all. He's about 3 years old, has boundless energy, such a sweet boy, just needs a constructive outlet for it I think!

How do I teach my dog to play? My Cocker Spaniel, Charlie, was adopted about 6 months ago. I think I already asked this before, and have tried to teach him to fetch, but he has to be in really the right mood for it! Otherwise he just completely ignores the ball. And when he does fetch it, he takes it with him and very rarely brings it back, lol. When I exchange the ball for a treat, he then just focuses on the treat and ignores the ball after this! I take him for a half-hour to an hour walk every morning, some days around the neighbourhood, some days with a good free run at the dog park. No dogs are there in the mornings, but lots of smells, and he galloped around a fair bit. I'd like to tire him out somehow so that he'd sleep most of the day, until we come home from work and he gets another walk in the evening. Lately he's been getting into mischief such as moving pillows from the outside chairs into the garden, moving towels hanging around, moving his own bedding from his crate into the garden... He doesn't chew them, just moves them and lies on them, lol. He hasn't moved any clothes drying yet, but I'm afraid that may be his next step! He only does this when we are not outside with him, like when we go indoors and come out 10 minutes later - something's been relocated. He's currently an outside dog (this is changing this week as we just got a new place to rent that approved us and Charlie - and yes he will be able to come indoors and spend more time with us) and I figure this may be contributing to his boredom. But still, he'd have to be outside during the day while we're at work. I'd love to be able to throw a ball around for him to fetch, or do something fun with him in the mornings that would tire him out. He doesn't seem to want to learn to play, though! What the heck do I do?

Thank you for your reply and advice :D (hehe I take sooo many photos of Charlie, it wasn't hard to find a "before" shot!) We've been cleaning the nose with warm chamomile tea, which seems to help soften the dry bit of the edge of the nose. We did take Charlie to the vet to show the nose, and the vet said it was some sort of skin irritation. He prescribed an oily sort of cream to put on the nose spot two times a day for 2 weeks, and it should hopefully go away. It has antibacterial and antifungal properties, so it should take care of whatever is causing it. Funniest part: the vet said to keep the cream on his nose for 5 minutes, ideally. We looked at him, looked at Charlie, and said "oh yeah, that's going to be fun!" He then said "if you can manage it for 2 minutes that'll be ok too..."

Hi there, this might be a weird question. My cocker spaniel's nose was all black, and recently I've noticed he's developed this pink spot on the underside/inside of one side of his nose. This was his nose a few months ago: This is his nose today: The other side of his nose still looks normal: What could have happened to one side of his nose? It's not mucus-ey, though I picked off a little bit of dried-on something before taking the photos, but his nose is not running or anything like that. He's not sneezing, seems to be breathing fine. We adopted him, the RSPCA should have done all the required vaccinations around November of last year. Could it be because he's always outside and he's caught some kind of localised infection due to the weather? (We're in Brisbane, so it's not really that cold, but it's still winter) (I can't do anything about him being stuck outside right now, and it drives me insane.. sigh.. still living with the in-laws... and they hate the very thought of a dog sharing space indoors with the family. My husband and I are trying to find a place to rent that will allow dogs indoors... I want the dog to be part of the family, the in-laws don't!)