koalathebear

Further to the above, we've been working on teaching Elbie to put his toys into a box. We've also been teaching him more patience with his food - waiting for his kibble as it's scattered around his head and also telling him to get his food but then making him sit once or twice. The weather was totally foul today and we didn't feel like going out so I took some more photos of Elbie in his new XXXL soft crate and worked with him on his tricks. It all comes together in

The weather's vile isn't it? We've got waterproof coats for Dog School tomorrow but neither husband nor I have waterproof shoes as we wade through the mud, roo poo and duck poo. We don't even have a waterproof mat for Elbie so he's going to be wet and muddy creature tomorrow. I've been working on his 'putting toys in the box' trick and also more on his food patience: 1. waiting as kibble is scattered around him - particularly under his nose 2. 'interrupting' him with a sit command as he runs towards his kibble. The only problem is that because he knows we're going to tell him to sit, he sometimes doesn't run anymore, he kind of does a cautious sidle/scramble - glancing at us the whole way What have you been doing with Miss Ava? She must have been quite frustrated if she was cooped up in the house all day!!! Well you certainly made up for lost time! It's ok, for your third dog and second Aussie, you can make sure you get him/her at 8 weeks. I hear that there may be more puppies available at the end of the year ... I'd love to see that. She already has an incredibly intense stare when she looks at the camera - it totally cracks me up. While staring at kibble she must be a hoot. You can also hold the kibble in place on her nose . Elbie's like that, too - commando crawl is a nightmare because he just wants to chomp on my fingers or his butt goes straight into the air when he's supposed to be crawling. I usually distracted Elbie with kibble while I tried to put the sticky tape on his face or got my husband to distract him while I put the sticky tape on. You might be able to use a peg with Genevieve. Slightly OT but one of my American friends was horrified when I referred to unsuccessfully putting a peg on the side of Elbie's face - apparently a 'peg' for her is like a stake that you would hammer in! Apparently the Americans would call a clothes peg a "clothes pin". Peanut butter is an option but if Genevieve's anything like Elbie, she won't even notice the peanut butter on her face

I don't think either husband nor I am up to dancing around with Elbie in a dorky outfit It's a bit like how we like the idea of Elbie doing agility but neither of us really likes the idea of being the person in the field running around with him and gesturing at the various apparatus Can Genevieve dance? The little doggies look so cute on hind-legs doing a kind of pirouette Elbie just looks spastic when he does it.

Peeking Elbie pretending to be cute Since Elbie no longer has a puppy's snubby nose, my husband has taken to calling him wedge-head in honour of his triangular head with its long snout. Here is wedgehead. Wedgehead waiting for permission to eat his treat Wedgehead wondering why I'm hiding behind the kitchen bench We've been working on teaching Elbie to put his toys into a box. We've also been teaching him more patience with his food - waiting for his kibble as it's scattered around his head and also telling him to get his food but then making him sit once or twice. It all comes together in

Some more pictures of Elbie and his new crate. He really likes it. It's like a playroom. Then again, everything's a playroom to Elbie

So glad it's come in handy! We're constantly on the look out for things to keep Elbie entertained. The muffin tin thing was awesome for a while but six 'holes' just isn't enough because he just whizzes through it and gives us a: "Is that all?" look We're working on a few other things to tax his brain right now including packing up his toys - which will come in handy given how many toys he has!!! Would love to see a video of your Springers and their muffin tin - I love the different techniques

spottychick: thanks We tease him and tell him he's being sent to the glue factory for being a wedgehead We are bad owners! It's a pig squeaker mat. See here. It has 16 squeakers in it so must be played with under supervision Elbie's mat now only has 14 squeakers in it ...

Elbie in his XXXL crate. He is such a poser and keeps still for the camera - pretending he's still cute!! Poor puppy, my husband's taken to calling him Wedge Head or Triangle Head since he developed such a long thin snout

You're doing well with Tesla. When we first got Elbie at 8 weeks, we weren't even thinking about tricks - just trying to deal with house-training and his night-time crying. At 10 weeks, we still weren't doing any tricks - just making him wait for his food! was a fail. was success. After he waited for his food successfully, then we started doing tricks with him I can't wait to see Tesla's tricks!Also, I've bought two trick books but to be honest, you can probably find all the tricks you need on DOL and on youtube! I really recommend that tab289 guy on youtube - he breaks down the tricks into easy steps that make the tricks seem less daunting.

Have fun at puppy school! Elbie's graduated to Dog School which the three of us enjoy a lot more - he was a bit badly behaved during the classroom sessions at puppy class. Too rambunctious

Not sure. Border people always say he seems very border collie, but kelpie people always say he's kelpie. In the end, he's just a quirky little doggie who likes to play Did you see his eyes in the 'ham balancing' trick? People ask me how I didn't feel guilty looking into those reproachful eyes ;) Max looks very cuddly and he does remind me of Elbie a lot My family dog when I was a kid was a border collie/lab named Kitt ... Very lovable.

Marley'z Mum: Thanks! Any updates on Marley? I'd love to see photos/videos To give Elbie a break from the "balancing things on his nose" trick, we decided to work on a new trick. It took all of tonight's dinner kibble (1 cup doled out a teeny bit at a time), but after a few aborted attempts, Elbie learned how to .Here's an . I like the: "What?" look he gives me. He was hilarious when he was learning, he kept putting the ball all over the place and then running up to me and staring at me intently as if to say: "Is this right? how about this? And this? Come on - this has to be right!"He's also learned to generalise i.e. he puts different toys in the box in different rooms.

Adorable! I love his eyes. They're so cute Elbie also makes some other really bizarre noises. I haven't been able to film it but they're pretty much the same as this . The first time we heard them, I thought he'd gone feral on us or something.

Absolutely beautiful. You must be having a wonderful time with him!

Well if he's nice to Kuma the Akita, Kuma might consider sharing his XXXXXL crate

Hi Max#1 (sorry to temporarily hijack your post aussielove In terms of sharing videos: 1. save the video files to your computer 2. go to youtube and create an account (http://www.youtube.com/create_account?next=%2F) 3. Then click "upload" (http://upload.youtube.com/my_videos_upload), select the video and upload to youtube. It will give you a link to where your video is located and you can post the address over here at DOL in a new post dedicated to the lovely Max.

Photo! photo! :D My husband crawled into our xxxl crate tonight and locked Elbie out - Elbie was exceedingly offended

If you don't mind me hijacking the post, I was also wondering whether there were any dog-safe antkillers as well... We're anticipating ants in summer.

So jealous of you for deciding to get another puppy Elbie's almost seven months now and I would love a second dog but my husband almost had a heart-attack when I said I mentioned my wish At first he thought I was joking, but when he realised I was serious, he went into shock. I guess it's because Elbie was such a tough learning-curve for us both and we have both spent huge amounts of time working with him. I'm not sure we will ever end up getting a second puppy but my "wish" list: - shiba inu - too much dog for us alas, but I do love them a LOT and I love that they're as beautiful and cute grown up as they are as puppies and they're not 'huge' - pound puppy of indeterminate or determinate heritage Top of my list though is a Noonbarra kelpie. Elbie despite being kelpie/border collie is very kelpie in his ways and I've read so much about kelpies and learned to love them so much - and the Noonbarra kelpies look and sound fabulous to me. Ah well. I'll add a Noonbarra kelpie to my Christmas list ;)

I can't help it, I have an image of you literally juggling dogs ... it's a gorgeous image

I hope your puppy feels better soon. We have a Bernese at our dog school and he is sooooooooooooo cute - and large! Elbie used to bark like a maniac whenever the doorbell rang so one day I just stood at the door while my husband held Elbie and kept ringing the doorbell and gave him treats every time he didn't bark. Elbie's very food-motivated Anyway, he doesn't bark at the door bell any more - much to our relief. He still gets very excited about guests so we usually crate him or put him outside until he settles. We're hoping he'll become calmer one day but we've been warned that kelpie crosses sometimes don't mature until 2 years ...

I'm in Canberra! It gets to be -10 here. Elbie was a winter puppy and we spent a lot of time shivering outside at night when he was doing his business. He learned to do it pretty quickly. Also, at first he didn't like toileting in the rain and either wouldn't go at all or he went all over the place (deck, path etc) instead of in Poo Corner. He has learned how to toilet properly now. It might take your puppy a while but you'll get there in the end! I notice a lot of dogs at dog school don't like dropping on cold, wet grass but they learn to do it. I'd never leave a puppy out in the cold but they're totally fine being out there for their toilet breaks

Elbie has a very bizarre ability to remain motionless for several minutes when he wants to do so. Sometimes if we have a toy that he knows we're going to throw, if we tell him to sit - sometimes he will stand there for several minutes waiting and then he will only very gradually sit down. Do you use a clicker with Ruby? What I did for Elbie was to follow tab289's advice in his youtube video. I started with kibble and held it up near Elbie's nose. At first his head was following me all over the place and he wouldn't keep still because he looooooooooves his food. When he didn't move/lunge/nibble for it, then I clicked or praised him and let him have the kibble. Then I started holding the kibble on top of his nose to get him used to it. After a bit, he started keeping still. a video of when we started. Unfortunately his nose isn't good for balancing kibble - I might try a dog biscuit or something. We've been trying to get him to be more disciplined with his eating e.g. not just wait but have him run towards it, we call out "sit" and he'll sit and wait. Sometimes he sits twice before even getting to his food. When he was younger he'd just gobble it all down like a little piggy but these days we can throw his kibble around him and he'll before eating it. We don't even have to say "leave it". Of course when it's super delicious treats, he sometimes loses control Thanks ;) I'm teaching myself how to use the windows movie maker and it's a lot of fun! I don't have enough video clips to practise on, though so if you have good ones of Ruby I'd be more than happy to try to make a music video for her ;)

It's ok - he gets to eat the ham after he's done waiting

Elbie's willpower being tested by .It took all of tonight's dinner kibble but tonight, Elbie learned how to .Here's an .