koalathebear

Elbie + new vacuum cleaner + Ava? I don't think I could handle 'em. :D

Wow, what a gorgeous story. Yay for the oldies. :D

Random question - are Ruby and James around the same age or is James a little older and bigger? They both look so cuddley and squishy to me. We are in Melba and the earliest I've ever taken Elbie for a walk is 6.30am ... I am dead to the world before then ...

Thanks for your replies. He's normally tough as an old boot and his toilet-training rock solid (even toilets on command in Poo Corner) so I was quite worried about the little monster. We'll just keep an eye on him. Thanks again.

Oh gosh, that is such a cute image. I really wish I could have seen it!!! 2 hours... Elbie takes about half an hour and then he is all soft, fluffy and very cute ...

Hope so. He's normally as tough as an old boot and his house-training has been rock-solid for months so it was a bit worrying. I worry too much, I guess. He throws up now and then because he has that dog habit of eating things he shouldn't so we'll find the frothy grass vomit, the frothy "WTF is that?" vomit and that sort of thing. OH has just given him some rice and water and says Elbie seems fine and perky as usual. Yesterday during obedience class, the little Westie threw up twice - maybe there was something yucky in the grass at dog school ... Now I am having a Cold Comfort Farm flashback ..."I saw something nasty in the woodshed"/"I ate something nasty in the grass at BDOC".

This morning we woke up and discovered that Elbie seems to have thrown up overnight and also wet his crate. He hasn't wet his bed since he was a very tiny puppy. I don't think he was in his crate too long overnight - no longer than usual. Checking him this morning, he doesn't seem unwell in any way and is his usual bouncy self. One possibility is that in the middle of the night last night, the neighbour's two dogs went absolutely insane and started barking and howling like crazy. The neighbours have just put in some sort of aviary/chicken coop and it is possible that the birds attracted a fox which would explain why their dogs went crazy. It's possible that Elbie woke up abruptly/was frightened and wet himself but I just don't know. It's a bit concerning. Like I said, he doesn't seem unwell at all so it doesn't warrant a trip to the vet because there's nothing to actually see/observe. If he does it again tonight then we'll consider a vet check. Are 8 month puppies prone to have the occasional bedwetting accident?

We have a little fan heater that we turn on in the kitchen and we play with Elbie in front of it along with a towel. He gets dry relatively quickly. Having him dry outside, he normally goes and rolls in dirt and undoes all the good of the bath.

This morning we woke up and discovered that our poor puppy seems to have thrown up overnight and also wet his bed - which is really weird because he hasn't done that since he was a tiny puppy. I don't think he was in his crate too long. He doesn't seem unwell in any way. One possibility is that in the middle of the night last night, the neighbour's two dogs went absolutely insane and started barking and howling like crazy. They've just put in some sort of aviary/chicken coop and it is possible that the birds attracted a fox which would explain why their dogs went crazy. Maybe Elbie woke up abruptly/was frightened and wet himself but I just don't know. It's a bit concerning. Like I said, he doesn't seem unwell at all so it doesn't warrant a trip to the vet. If he does it again tonight then we'll consider a vet check. Are 8 month puppies prone to have the occasional bedwetting accident?

I always find the vaccination thing so confusing. Our dog club says dogs must be fully vaccinated (C3) but then the vet says that puppies need 3 sets of injections (C5) and they are not allowed to go to obedience class until 2 weeks after the third injection. Some people say their dogs only need 2 sets of vaccinations, others say it's ok to take the dog around after the second vaccinations even if there are three sets of vaccinations. Trying to strike a balance between socialisation and vaccination protection always seems very hard.

Hector's face is soooo cute here.

With me screaming out "bonzo" and you exclaiming "octopus", I wonder if our pups ever think: "My humans are bonkers." ETA: Yes, when my OH and I imagine Elbie 'speaking' about us, we imagine that he refers to us as "my humans".

That reminds me of what happened tonight. OH said: "Stand!" to Elbie, I popped my arm under Elbie's belly to hold his back legs up. From the dampness, he must have done a wee pretty recently. Training was interrupted by me running off to wash my arm.

Yes, that was hilarious!!! She was talking to you but then switched to talking to Ava in the same tone of voice, no segue, no nothing, even still looking at you. O the joys of being Owned By Doggies. I am glad my tale of Dangling Poo Woe made you all laugh. I was very traumatised at the time Betsy: welcome! I am not sure why people always feel the need to lurk. All are welcome.

I know I should stop being a squeam given that I'm now a dog owner and we both cleaned up many little messes when Elbie was still being toilet-trained but still ... I actually find it hilarious how many poo threads there are on DOL (why does my dog eat poo/I prefer poo picking in winter when the poo is cold/why does my dog poo when I'm doing poo pick etc). OK, here is My Funny Poo Story When Elbie was very little, now and then he'd go out to do his business and then we'd hear crying, squealing noises of distress. We'd run outside, convinced that someone was trying to murder our puppy. Instead, it would be Elbie spinning around and around in very distressed circles with a lump of poo hanging out of his butt by a strand ... My fault because I have long hair. He must have licked some of my hair off of the floor and so he had dangly poo and he'd be running as fast as his little legs would let him to try to escape the dangly poo. Honestly, from the noise he was making, you would think he was in physical distress as his little head kept darting around to try to look at his own butt. Twice, I was able to 'flick it off' with leaves/a twig but one time, he moved too fast and it was ME running inside squealing and making noises of distress: "Out of my way, I have poo on my hand! I've gotta wash it off!!!!" Luckily, Elbie seems to have learned to avoid licking bits of the floor with my hair because we've only had one 'Dangling Poo Distress' incident in the last few months.

Thanks huski - the chair plan sounds like it could work for Elbie and whatever works is 'right' for us. We'll take the stand in slow steps then. On a side note, I watched one of your vids when you were proofing Daisy's 'stay' and you were throwing toys around her and distracting her and she was lying there very well-behaved. I thought that it was a great way to proof Elbie's stay (we usually just tug on the leash). I tried it with Elbie and he was great as I threw toys around his head. Unfortunately, the first time I threw a ball past his head, my dog disappeared. He is good now and I can toss balls and his favourite toys and he will keep a drop/stay, sit/stay - I hope I can make his stand-stay as strong one day.

He will keep still and do a sit-stay for OH, me and also my mum (he used to go bonkers for her) but the stand-stay for pats (even when it's just non-exciting me patting him) is non-existent. The rump plonks onto the ground as soon as someone approaches him. 2 dogs in our class today did beautiful stands for examination and OH and I were going: "Uh oh ..." when our turn approached. Fortunately, newbies just had to do "sit for exam" but we know we'll have to get his stand up to scratch.

Beautiful photos, wuffles. Ava looks so serene and lovely ... that's the quietest I've seen her. I love the look on Satchmo's face there - I find it a bit crazy that I haven't met the celebrity Satch yet!!! Regarding the sour cream - did you throw it out after that? It's always a dilemma. I was chopping ham the other day, turned around and saw Elbie with his paws up on the counter licking the cubes of ham near the edges ... I tossed out those bits and kept the rest and hoped that Elbie hadn't licked more when I wasn't looking.

Elbie's fine with his sits and drops. We've been able to get him to do a sit from a drop. He is actually doing much better at his sitting still for pats than he was. We're still having some problems with his "stand" though: 1. He doesn't stand on the spot and thinks that he has to take a step forward to do a stand - this is because we started out luring him into a stand with our hand. We generally don't need to lure him anymore to do a stand. 2. Sometimes when we still lure him, he raises his paw because the hand before his face makes him think that we want 'shake hands'. It's hard for him to distinguish. 3. Regarding "stand for examination", he will hold the stand position for a period of time and will also retain it when we tug on the leash, but as soon as someone walks up to him to pat him - he does an automatic sit - complete with "pat me!" googoo eyes. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Ah, ok, thanks. Good to know. Sometimes I wonder if our vet over-medicates a little. That is so cute! How can you stand in the way of Twu Wuv? I am really hoping that in several weeks, the weaving will help to desensitise Elbie to other dogs. His major tests will be the White Shepherd and Jaffa the bouncy chocolate labrador. So glad that your trialling class was fun - it sounds interesting! And being off-lead must have made things more exciting. Also, Clyde is an awesome name for a beagle. I wonder why there aren't more beagles at our club. Don't go back into the lurk! I'm so sorry that you don't have your border collie yet - hopefully soon ... Yesterday, I kept remarking to OH how cute and lovely Clastic's dog Mars is and what a sweet-looking face he ishas and how funny he looked sticking his head out the car window and the paws, too and OH said: "If you love that dog so much, why don't you steal him?" ;) I don't think that Clastic would be that impressed. Breeders keep telling me that cow poo/sheep poo is just regurgitated grass, all dogs love it and I should stop being a squeam. I can't help it. I think I'm doing pretty well doing the regular poo pick of the yard ... when it's new, fresh and steaming, I generally leave that to OH ... Yesterday at training, Elbie did one and there was no bin so we had to drive for 5 min in the stinking hot weather with a poo bag on the floor of the car. wuffles appears desensitised to poo because today during play in the offlead area, she was standing there chatting away airily holding a bag of poo in her hand without batting an eyelash. I am so glad that Roo is ok. I'd be freaked out, too about the dead mouse but if it was killed with a trap, presumably it's fine ... Photos are good! (1) Roo is cute; (2) it will stop this thread being reported and moved to goodness knows where. I'm not sure where they would move it to be honest but if we all stuck to our breed specific threads it would be a pain. Sorry to hear school is back tomorrow. Back at work tomorrow and I have a feeling it's going to be a Tough Week at work. Ulp.

Oh, thank you. We love him a lot. He is a lot of hard work, but he also works very hard and we find him most delightful. I'm glad you think he's sweet, too. Oh dear. I was trying to give people the benefit of a doubt. My view is that the violence has to end somewhere and one act of violence does not justify another.

Awesome. Sounds like one of those toilet paper ads that has cute, roly poly, cuddly lab puppies in it. Did he give you that mournful: "What???? I am innocent!" looks? Clastic: those videos are so cute. Random question - will Pepper's ears go up or stay down when she's older? They're so cute now although Mars' ears are very awesome - Batman! Like wuffles and kumaakita, it was our first day back at BDOC after a week off. It was Elbie's first day in silver class and he did surprisingly well. As usual he was hyperactive and over-excited after getting out of the car and seeing all of the other dogs. He stayed demented around Kuma the Akita but then he was reunited with Rogue the huski cross and briefly with Dotty the JRT and he seemed to calm down a little bit. First was heelwork which went fine although it's always funny to watch the handlers getting confused and going in different directions. Then it was mealtime manners, also fine. Then we did go to your mats with a stay - where the leash was next to the dog We had images of Elbie breaking free and running loose with the cows and kangaroos but fortunately he maintained his stay even though the dog on his left broke and bolted and the dog on his right broke the stay 3 times. Towards the end, though, OH was holding up two pieces of devon going: "Look at me! 2 pieces of devon! Look at me!" Our instructor seems very nice and down to earth and OH (who is hard to please) approves. Our classes even come with their very own distraction-tester because the instructor's dog is a large lab x poodle that is tethered to the fence and barks a lot. Elbie ignored the dog very nicely. In sit for pats, Elbie did not break his sit but he wriggled on the spot very excitedly and the instructor said: "He's very wiggley isn't he." Shelly the Whippet's owner said: "Oh - you have no idea how much he's improved. He's a lot calmer now than he used to be." and a little bit of OH and I were worried that with our hyperactive dog in silver we'd be like those humiliated parents hauling a screaming child through the supermarket. One new exercise we did which we thought was great that instead of weaving in and out between traffic cones, dog and handler had to weave in and out of a line of other dogs and handlers - great distraction-testing for everyone! Elbie sat stoically for the first few dogs. When it was his turn to go around, he did well except that he and Jaffa the chocolate lab lunged at one another. It's a really good exercise for a dog like Elbie because dogs walking by CAN be a huge distraction for him. OH was saying that he wished we'd started that exercise in bronze but I pointed out that perhaps it's not a good exercise for bronze because it would be a waste of time with quite a lot of dogs lunging. Poor Bella the little Westie was sick and threw up twice so had to leave class. She and her young handler looked very miserable and despondent today. Just as we thought Elbie was getting better at the "sit for pats", we discover he now has to do "stand for examination". His stands are shocking - very short-lived because he'll drop or sit at the drop of a hat so we're going to have to work on doing a lengthy stand with him and them introducing the pat/examination element. Off-lead was good today. Mostly big dogs but it wasn't crazy at all and Elbie knew most of the dogs. Elbie wants to hang out with Kuma but he's not very good at playing with him yet, alas. He followed Ava around for a bit but as usual, he mostly did his own thing - chasing after the frisbee like the nigel in the corner or begging for treats from handlers. I don't think Elbie's ever going to get to the point of body-slamming, face-biting and boxing like the others. After class, we stopped by the butchers at the Belc. markets where we always get Elbie's lamb flaps. Today it was a feast - they gave us heaps of lamb flaps, cut them in halves, also some roo bones and cut a marrow bone up into quarters for us. "And it's all organic!" they told us with smilingly. ETA: One not so good thing. Elbie's very good with taking tablets and is sort of ok about getting his nails clipped. What he really does NOT like is getting his Advantix anti-flea stuff. It's in a little tube which you kind of slide down the back of his neck on the skin. He HATES it. When we did it today, he wriggled, squirmed very violently. All the treats in the world would not tempt him. In the end, I held him and he was fine when the nozzle was on his skin but as soon as the liquid touched his skin, he bucked and pulled away like it burned or something. Then for about 10 minutes later, he kept running away from us. Then he stood at the top of the stairs staring at us VERY reproachfully. I couldn't bear those reproachful eyes staring at me, particularly as I was at the sink separating and preparing all of his lamb flaps/marrow bones/roo bones for freezing so I shut the sliding door. Instead of opening the door like he usually does, he pushed it open about 2 cm with his nose and stood there continuing to stare at us reproachfully with one baleful eye. Eventually I said to OH: I can't bear this - please open the back door to let him outside. So OH let him out and he went into his kennel which faces the kitchen door and stayed in there and stared balefully at OH instead. He's back to normal again now, though. it's all a bit odd!

I have to agree on this one ... The stories about horrible animal cruelty are very upsetting but they are factual and it is important to know about them to see what the law does etc but I'm usually very disconcerted by the responses that advocate some form of gruesome, physical retaliation. I know it's rhetoric and the posters don't actually mean they want to go and kick people and gouge out their eyes etec but sometimes the strength of language describing what should be done to the perpetrators is as upsetting as the original article. I'm not a believer in eye for an eye. We hopefully don't live in that kind of poor, nasty, brutish, and short-lived society (to borrow from Hobbes) any more ...

Poor Elbie's had to be retrained a few times now because of the cluelessness of his owners... we used to put him in the heel position by slapping our leg. Then 2 weeks before assessment, we were given an info sheet that said: "handler must not slap leg to get dog into heel position." :D OH and I were going: "Uh oh ..." So that night at dinner, OH hastily retrained Elbie to go into the heel position on voice alone without the leg slap. :D I'm sure Elbie must be thinking: "Come on guys, make up your mind." It's lucky for us he usually only takes a few goes to retrain to a new word/gesture. ETA: Randomness about words ... When Elbie was younger, i wasn't convinced that Elbie was responding to his name and was just responding to our tone of voice so I used to call out: "Bonzo!!" I always looked startled when Elbie ignored it and only responded to his name - OH was very disgusted that I was under-rating our pup's intellect.

It's not too late to get him to respond to the word. Just lure him into position and name it 'heel' ... after x number of times he'll figure it out because he's such a smart cookie - you saw how responsive he was today to the 'car training'. As for hand signals - we taught those to Elbie because someone said it could be handy if the dog goes deaf when it's old but they're definitely useful even now when he can hear. :D It's great if Mars responds to hand signals - you can train all the equivalent voice commands, too in time. I wasn't too fussed about the 'ok' thing .. :p While I could see how a dog could be accidentally released by an accidental 'ok', we would never have Elbie offlead or on a loose leash at a roadside to be accidentally released ... Also, it's the release word that works for him so we'll just stick to it. We've also been told that "good boy" isn't good as his marker word, but Elbie's smart and he knows when he's being praised for something he's done and when we're just saying he's a good boy - you can see it in his eyes. I only found out what an informal recall was when I mentioned something we had to do in class and wuffles called it an informal release. Basically the formal recall is when you get the dog to stay, you walk away and call it to you. Informal is when the dog's wandering away from you amidst distractions and you call it back. For us, we think the formal release is way easier. We're expecting Elbie to probably need to repeat silver - maturity wise and also skills-wise. That's fine because if gold is mostly trialling work, it's probably not going to be that useful for us and we might look to agility at that time and probably just beef up on the behavioural training stuff like we are doing in our Saturday classes. There's also herding with those seven sheep. :D Obedience trialling doesn't look 'fun' for us and I don't think Elbie will ever have the temperament to go marching placidly around a field, heeling, sitting and dropping like that ... Mars and Pepper herding together would be so cute. ETA: Because you've got two dogs, do you use two different marker words and two different release words so that they don't get confused? I'd find that really confusing because with Elbie even when I want to use the clicker, sometimes I just automatically say: 'good boy!' when he does something good. I've heard that clicker training can be confusing with two dogs so wondered about the marker word thing. Speaking of funny marker words, there's a lady at Dog School who'swhose marker word is: "SWEET!!!!" and her "drop" command is: "Lie lie!" So we'll hear her exclaim: "Steffy lie-lie! Sweeeet!"