koalathebear

Those doggy raincoats are so cute - the dogs look soooooo happy! At the end of the day, even though DOL makes it look like it's easy to be a dog owner sometimes, it can be a lot of hard work. There's no perfect dog. Kumaakita mentioned Elbie and his tricks - yup, he's so smart and trainable, very bright, very affectionate - but outside the house, he's hyperactive enough to power a small city. I look at the placidity of Kuma and sigh and wonder if I will ever get Elbie to the point where he isn't bouncing off walls like a ping pong ball I know OH looks at Satch's calmness and placidity with envy as well. We love Elbie a LOT but there are definitely things about him that drive us bonkers and that we continue to work to change. We know it's not his fault and we know that things take time - and it's a fun and funny trip along the way.

Niques, is the early training for the paw trick. Lazy Hooman can teach the trick just sitting in the chair and sticking out her feet, making poor dog do all the work

Peekaboo video is . First you just lure doggy through legs from behind. But then he learns to come and do peekaboo from wherever he is in the room. It's very simple but always gets an amused reaction from spectators when dog pops through and peeks up cutely.I should teach my two more tricks - they seem to enjoy them a lot but lately we've been working on boring snoring stuff like heeling, loose leash walking, focus ETA: I'd also teach James are you shy. It's a trick that can take ages to teach but he would look very cute doing it! lilli_star: Ha, happy to teach tricks to Roo - when you visit us in Canberra

Interestingly, Elbie does not do head tilt. Only Hoover!

That would be Wrong.

We were working with Elbie on the foot tap - stick out right foot he taps it with his corresponding foot, stick out left foot and he taps it with his corresponding foot. I also hold up right hand and he taps it and then left hand - like those clapping games in school Also putting things in a box. Peekaboo? That's always very cute. Drop/sit in the middle of a recall or on his way to his food? I'd love to be able to cue a head tilt - Hoover does the most incredibly adorable head tilt EVER - but I can't cue get him to do it on command yet

OH is trying to teach Elbie to jump onto his back when he's kind of in a crouch So far no one has been hurt

So sorry - I meant to type 'stand'. My brain is all over the place today - I might be going into Fatal Chocolate Deprivation. For stand, I suggest you just lure him from a sit into a stand for the time being and get your OH to stick his arm under his stomach to keep him in position for a few seconds, just to 'show' him what you want. Even if he only holds the stand for a second or two, reward and praise madly. For Elbie, we praise him like crazy when he does what he's supposed to even for a second. Then as he offers the behaviour more consistently, then we will only reward after he does what we want him to - you gradually raise the bar but in the early stages, you praise and reward like crazy.

kyliegirl: if he's really that obsessed with the toy, you can use it to lure him into a rollover and also a crawl. Those require the dog to basically obsessively chase the toy/food.

Hi kyliegirl You might need to 'recharge' the click i.e just have your bowl of small treats, click and treat, click and treat to recondition Echo to the clicker being a Good Thing. Alternatively, if Echo is that toy/food focused, you can just use those as a reward for when he does the right thing. He doesn't get the food or the toy until he delivers the right action. My two are stubborn little bastards sometimes and I will quite frequently have a stare down with them until they finally obey the command If he keeps getting distracted by the toy in your hand, let him see it but then put it behind your back or out of sight and then reward him with it when he does the right thing. Alternatively, you could use it to lure behaviours like spin - we used a toy to teach spin. Stay is one of the trickiest things ... if Echo is delivering up begsit, then why not try building on that first? eg. high five, wave, or beg. Those things flow quite naturally from the sit.

Happy Birthday Max! I love the photo of him asleep on the sofa. Sooooo cute.

Indeed. To be significant however, we're going to need a sample size greater than one person's experiences... It kind of similar to what cigarette companies do, in that they claim that because they know of someone who smoked and didn't die from it, cigarettes can't possibly be bad for you. Yay for scientific method to help us see the forest from the trees. jacqui835: I understand that you feel strongly about this and that you are convinced that you are right and that it's clear no one is going to be able to convince you that cropping is anything but in the dog's benefit but when you say things like this: It's hard to take the above argument seriously because that makes it sound like it's fine to chop of the dog's entire ear and leave leave the hole behind because that's all that matters Also, I can't stress how much I disagree with your assertion that floppy ears are somehow dangerous or detrimental to a dog's health and have been introduced by humans because they are 'cute'. Although the 'standard for working line Kelpies states 'prick ears', there are many very good working dogs with floppy ears who are very valued by their handlers, who do not suffer from ear-related health problems and perform their functions perfectly - you can't really have a good herding Kelpie whose hearing isn't good. Nature wanted my Kelpie's ears to Rise and that they did, with no need for surgical intervention. Nature decided my other dog would go floppy eared and his hearing (like many other floppy eared working dogs) is fine ... You cannot possibly say that Australian farmers were breeding for 'cuteness' when they ended up with floppy-eared Kelpies - working line Kelpies are bred with pure functionality in mind and appearance is entirely irrelevant. If you mentioned breeding 'cute' into the mix, I'm sure the Kelpie breeders would be horrified... I think if you just said that if you said you wanted to crop a dog's ears for cosmetic reasons because you think it looks better, many people might not agree with you but probably wouldn't argue with you as long as the cropping was done by a qualified vet, in a jurisdiction where cropping is legal and the dog's health is not impaired ... It's where you try to shift the responsibility for the decision from you to the dog i.e. it's for the dog's welfare that it comes across as something of a tenuous argument...

kyliegirl: I take my dogs to the local shops, outside Bunnings , the hospital, the markets etc to get them used to being around people without getting excited. So far, everyone has been very receptive to waiting until the dog sits for pats before actually going in for the pat - I've only once had a guy just stick his hand out and pat without asking. So perhaps pick your 'public spots' if the ones you're going to have people who don't listen to you. Another place that's great for practice is before and after class in the car park at the obedience club - everybody there will be happy to wait until the dog has settled before patting. I sometimes go to class quite a bit earlier just so that I can expose the dogs to more people and dogs. On walks, I usually don't see people or the people I see are jogging/walking/walking their own dog so have no interest in interacting with my dog, so that's fine. If I found I was encountering overly high distraction, then I would avoid those zones. Basically it's about trying to gradually build up the distraction levels until the dog is desensitised. It looks as though wherever you're walking now and whoever you're meeting is not suitable so try somewhere else?

I tend to not let people pat our dogs unless they've agreed to the 'terms'. If the people you are encountering are ignoring your requests (family members can be the worst), then don't let them meet him anymore until he's settled. We leave ours in a crate or outside until they're settled, then they can interact. If people ignore what we ask, then we send the dogs out again. ETA: our dogs still get very excited when people come to visit so they are kept outside. Once the guest is inside, seated and the dogs have calmed down, then they get invited inside. Different people have different tolerance thresholds - some people try to 'dance' with our dogs, which we discourage. Some people have told us that they are 'paws up' kind of people and don't mind their dogs (or other dogs) jumping up on them but if they're coming to our house, then we request that they don't undo the dogs training - this includes tradesmen who are often very friendly with the dogs and want to play rough with them. They've all been pretty good and the guy who put in the screen doors was very good at standing with his back to Elbie until Elbie sat nicely for pats

Exactly! Sometimes people act like people should know everything before they get the dog but a lot of people learn after they get the dog and that's fine. I appreciate that if you want to breed you should be researching beforehand but if you're getting a pet, you frequently learn as you go and it's better to ask than not ask. Also, I'd say that the whole desex/don't desex thing isn't necessarily a clear-cut issue. Some people say you should desex, some people are violently opposed to it - it's good to hear the good and bad of both sides of the equation - especially if the consequences of an Ooops Litter are so ghastly (DOL Disapprobation aside!) I'd never have an undexed dog (mine are pets) so didn't know about the noisy side of things - just knew about the messy side of things if you have a female.

Well the helpful comments in this thread are still useful. Many people on DOL are criticised for desexing or are discouraged from desexing - I think it's useful to see why having entire dogs can be a pain in the neck, too. It's less frequently discussed than the cons of desexing.

poodlemum and the other helpful people - thanks so much for being helpful on this thread. There are SO many DOL threads around that are quite anti-desexing these days (in great detail), which is totally fine but it's therefore nice to know about the practical implications of trying to keep a dog entire so that the decision to desex or not desex is made with knowledge of the pros and cons of both scenarios. Every time I read a thread that's discouraging people from desexing, I always wonder if the person being discouraged has the time and resources to be able to own an entire dog. I know I certainly don't

Those on FB have already seen this, but this is from this morning when the dogs were waiting for their lazy humans to get out of bed. Elbie is resting his head on Hoover and Hoover is resting his head on the bed and snoozing Edited to resize the photo which was originally one of those ginormous ones where all you can see is a nose or an eye.

I guess I'm in the minority - we got our second pup (3 months old) when our first pup was only 8 months old and we're very happy with how things have gone. They are great company for one another, number two has learned a LOT training-wise from the first dog. Some tricks we haven't even taught Hoover, he has picked up by watching Elbie. It certainly sped up house training and house manners. Elbie's training didn't suffer at all from what we could see. As for bonding, we make sure we train them separately and together. We give both of them 'alone' time when the other dog is taken out. At home, when they're playing together, they know that a clap of the hands means to stop play and come over. We're extremely happy with the two dogs and would gladly do it again ...

Gosh Ziggy is a beautiful boy. I've never seen him non-smiley before but he still looks gorgeous

I'm so impressed. The conditions looked horrible but you all did so well! I loved all the dogs shaking off the water while maintaining their stand-stay

Mars has awesome ears. He is Batman! I also can't believe how incredibly comfy he looks in that sleeping photo ... dogs have an amazing ability to look soooooooooooooo comfortable and at ease when they snooze.

Elbie's head turns are a little bit extreme I have to say, he did the SFE twice in a row on Sunday without wriggling - I almost died of shock

Thanks for the information. Elbie does it for sit and drop as well but he's less likely to shift/move his position when in a sit or a drop. With the stand, he is maintaining the stand with no changes in footwork but I worry that he's much more likely to break position by following me with his head when in a stand. It's a tricky one!! ETA: Thanks for the clicker suggestion - that might work.

hi fuzzy: Elbie's fine with stand now - he stands on the spot with no stepping forward. The issue is when I walk away and return to his side, he cranes his head around to follow me and I want him to keep staring ahead if possible.