suziwong66

the irony of the situation is that about 10 or so minutes before, Wilbur turned and approached the lady sitting behind us (really confined back to back seating) through the arm of her chair. i was tending to Laiken at the time (i clicker train while i'm out with her) and i missed him. as soon as i saw him turned around, i pulled him back, but it was not in time for her to get a fright. she was very very frightened and i immediately apologised. I don't let my dogs interact with anyone when we're out. It was totally my responsibility to keep him from approaching people and i failed and i apologised to her with no excuses. It's really difficult to train dogs to ignore people when every other day someone approaches without permission and encourages my dogs to break from the sit or drop beside me. i can't win Two weeks ago a guy from the next table leaned across and actually called to Wilbur and i had to keep my cool and stop him. My poor dogs get so many mixed messages despite how hard i try to keep people away.

standing ovation for Tapua's OH

Every Saturday morning we take 3.5 year old labby Wilbur out for puppycino at our local cafe; i ALWAYS hem him in with me being the block to the sidewalk. The cafe has tables butted up against the building front, then there's the walk way, then they have more tables at the roadside. Over the past 6 weeks we've also started taking our newest fur family member in a puppy stroller. She is always on the path side. She's currently 14 weeks old. Today a bloke with a big GSP stopped right in front of the stroller facing us. he had his dog in a collar hold. Immediately my dogs reacted; they became aware of the dog but were calm. I grabbed wilbur's collar so he wouldn't pull toward the dog and Laiken stood up in the pram and became focussed on the dog. i asked him to please move away. he didn't and then started talking to me. i started to tell him that i didn't want him coming close to us and then Laiken started barking; just what i didn't want. he then started to tell me that his dog was friendly rah rah rah and i told him this is exactly what i didn't want and that he didn't have the right to force a meet and greet upon us. i grabbed wilbur and took him over the curb away from people to remove us from the turbulence and lost my temper and when i walked away i swore (which i regret). OH was following with Laiken. Then the fellow came over to us again!! And i told him again that he didn't have the right to force a meeting and i was trying to avoid getting the puppy jacked up. He said i was rude; and i returned with you're rude and that you don't have the right to force a meet and greet with my dogs and your dog just because you want to. You don't have the right to socialise my puppy; that's my right. I asked you to move and you wouldn't. It was a really confronting situation for me, he hemmed us in so getting away from him was difficult. He then tried to tell me if i take my dogs out in public then i have to expect meetings and i said no i don't. Going out in public with my dogs does not exclude me from the right to be left in peace; i didn't bother him and he has no right to force me into a meet and greet. Then the young guy from the clothing store next to the cafe came out for his two cents worth; he doesn't like me because when Wilbur was a puppy and i was training and walking past his shop to the cafe one day, he was sitting on the set outside and reached out and patted Wilbur without asking. i asked him not to because the dog was training and i didn't want him losing focus. He told me today "it's just a dog"...i just told him it's my right to raise my dog the way i want without other people forcing situations on me without any choice. I've never come across someone who totally ignored my request to move away; he forced us into a meeting and more importantly hemmed us physically in. I'm so fecking angry. Nobody has the right to force me to socialise my pup with their dog. Nobody has the right to force me to have a meet and greet in a public space with other people sitting around enjoying their weekend. A crowded cafe, imo, is NOT the place for a doggy meet and greet. I really regret swearing...i panicked because this guy hemmed us in and Laiken started reacting to his dog...which was what i was trying to avoid. I still want to slap the clothing store owner rant over.

PM Ness, she's got a decent handle on specialist/specific type care re vets

Ahhh yes the assumption that because you take your dog in shared public spaces, you want to meet and greet anyone and everyone including dogs, that you pass It's highly related to the assumption that because i have my dogs in public, it's everyone's right to touch and distract them It's my first week of having The Pocket Rocket (12 week old Choc lab bitch) in low risk public spaces - the challenge has been more about other people keeping their hands to themselves than it has about teaching her acceptable behaviours. Twice i've had to physically remove older men's hands from her.

i crate trained my 3yo labby boy and am currently doing Susan Garrett's Crate Games and Leslie McDevitt's games with my newest 12 week old labby girl. IMHO the crate is the single most usable piece of dog equipment in my training. I've used it to teach: toilet training, wait, stay, release, sending away etc It's well worth the effort to teach a dog to crate as the behaviours can extend to so many other behaviours.

My breeder sends all copies of the microchipping paperwork (excluding any vet copies) to me and i fill out the paperwork listing me as the owner and then i send off one copy to AAR and i keep one copy. A few weeks later, when the info has been put into the AAR system i can log in and change any details i need to change. It's been this way with both of my labby kids who come from the same breeder. i hope you get your registration papers! When my 11 week girl came home at 8 weeks, her registration papers arrived a little over a week later. When my boy came home a little over 3 years ago, his papers came really quickly too.

i love my Grippa/Gripper 6 point police leash that i got from k9Pro; it's so versatile and i mostly wear it across the body as a handsfree. I have nearly all the grippa's; just love them.

well done finding your solution

totally normal: i have a 12 week lab girl here atm and it's a daily routine of eat; poop; play; sleep all day long i slip training in during the 'eat' session and the 'play' session and also when coming in and out of crate/ex-pens etc

Ditto yeah...i'm with you two

i hear you loud and clear - I had Wilbur wear a high viz vest with "L please ignore me i'm training" written on it when he was a pup and people STILL would interrupt/disrupt our training. I avoid any place where i will come across other dogs/owners whenever possible. If people approach i try to display body language that shows i'm not going to engage with them. If people let their dog approach then i always say "call/pull your dog back"...I don't ask. If they say things like 'my dog is friendly' (all the while letting their doggy pull them toward us) i don't engage with them i repeat loudly 'recall your dog' and i keep repeating it until they do it. I never train in dog parks and i use extra long long-line leashes (i'll even clip several together) to do far-off recall and other work. I know that having them on a long line isn't ideal, but since i'm not in fenced off areas i feel safer having him on a long line. Wilbur has a pretty good recall and i think it's because i've kept him away from high distractions while i was training him early on. I only introduced distractions when i thought he was going to succeed rather than fail. I never allow unknown dogs to interact whether we're training or not. He was introduced to his sister (our new pup) 3 weeks ago and i thought he would be crazy distracted and super excited; how wrong i was. he's quite calm around her and when i do occasionally let them play he'll recall and disengage from her without too much problems. I'm super proud of him since i know how much work has gone into his recall these last three years. To be honest, i probably come across as rude but i keep to myself and i want to be left alone to train my dog(s) and if someone approaches, i keep it short and sweet. I've yet to find a great solution but i just keep on training in public spaces and deal with each situation as it arises. Yesterday I took the puppy 11.5 weeks old to Maggie Beer's Farm shop for lunch. When i took her over to the grassed area to evacuate, i turned around and realised that a whole bunch of OS tourists had lined up behind me to watch Not ideal when i'm trying to teach a pup to evacuate on command and it's her first public evacuation I smiled briefly but didn't engage with anyone and got out of there as soon as possible. I know some people like their pups to meet and greet anyone and everyone but i don't. i like controlled meet and greets that are calm. I had one a little later at the paint store that i was going to; pup had a nice calm meet 'n greet with the owner while we discussed dogs/training etc Good luck!

we have a 11.5 week old labby guzzler in this house atm We feed her in an ex pen totally separated from her big labby brother. She's now just started using a slow feeder bowl for her wet mix; it's slowing her down a little, which is better than nothing. As for raw bone content she inhales all bones even frozen, in an alarming manner. I now smash all bones flat with a meat mallet. I gave her chicken necks both fresh and frozen; utter fail. I have her chicken wings: another fail. smashed up frames cut into thirds have been fine. I may start hand feeding the wet mix to slow her down; we'll see how the slow feeding bowls goes a little longer. Edited to add that i've tried stuffing and freezing Kongs with her and they haven't worked - she knows what to do with them as i've done some training sessions with her, but she just won't engage with it.

i bought a Dremel last year and then did three to four solid months of Dremel training with norty brown dawg...he still hates the darn thing *sigh* at least i use it for other projects.

yeah...my furminator gets a workout when my boy is blowing his undercoat. Yes, they're expensive in pet stores here too...i got mine on ebay for two thirds less than at PetStock. a couple of years ago i bought a Kong Zoom brush for the undercoat removal but i really don't like it...even when i'm washing norty brown dawg it doesn't really work. Love the Furminator though.

i've lived in SA, NT, QLD and VIC with labs and never had to even consider clipping their coats

I'm with TSD in terms of waiting your boy out while he makes his choices...my 3yo labby boy will sometimes decide he doesn't want to do something; i just wait him out. I train for self regulation and i'm back to square one with a 10 week old labby girl. My initial training over the last two weeks has been mostly about 'nice' behaviour: sitting at the ex pen gate for me to come in; sitting and waiting to be released to eat; sitting in the crate waiting for me to leash her up; having them both sit nicely together to get a treat etc I haven't given 'sit' a command yet but i've certainly been doing the foundation clicker/marker word work in getting her to offer the sit at doorways, crates etc For me, with my labs, it's important that they self regulate that natural exuberance and give me behaviours rather than me asking for them.

Inside stuffies don't get destroyed; they're for mouthing, BUT outdoor toughie toys do get the stuffing pulled out. I also have a hollee mollee for the dogs and it's filled with strips of fabric so they can 'de-stuff' their hearts content

we have mounted police in the Adelaide CBD and Wilbur and i run into them on our walks now and again; i sit stay him and the Police like that and thank me as they pass. Even though I don't normally come across horses in the CBD or suburbia, i'm happy to make sure my boy is well behaved around them. Even if i were in a off-lead beach and we came across people with horses i'd make sure he was on-lead and in a sit stay. I don't want my dog to spook their horses and or be a nuisance. I am of the opinion that they too are just wanting to enjoy their horses like i want to enjoy my dog and I am happy to be considerate to their needs/wants in shared public spaces.

this little pocket rocket arrived last Friday, so i guess i officially move over to this thread. Today is day 4 and i have a quiet house while the pocket rocket sleep in her crate in the kitchen and norty brown dawg Wilbur snoozes outside. I am exhausted To be fair, last night we went to bed at 1:30 am and she got me up for a wee about 6:30 (her best effort yet!) and then we went back to sleep till about 8:30-9 and then after breakfast the three of us went for our first solo walk with the puppy pram! (embarrassed doesn't begin to cover how i felt walking a puppy in a pram with a dog beside me ) gotta say i got my first experience of how wheelchair/pram unfriendly Adelaide is. my favourite walk is around the Torrens crossing over at the new walk bridge. I couldn't find a ramp to take me up to the walk bridge from the side of the river I had to all the way out of the river side district to King William Street, and walk through the Festival Theatre Centre area to gain access. Today, Pocket Rocket Laiken got a lesson in not jumping at the ex pen gate when i come to get her...While i was hanging out the washing, i would go to the ex pen, begin to open the gate when she was sitting (no commands as yet) and then close it again when she got up, or jumped at the gate or starting yowling. She got very frustrated after a few tries of not getting her own way, but i persisted and around the 7th or 8th attempt we had success. She sat while i opened the gate and sat until i picked her up

Even though i've had ANKC registered dogs for the past 18 years, it was only in more recent years that I really got to understand breed conformation standards and their place in showing and subsequently in breeding. I knew there were show dogs but i didn't understand why people showed. I even remember going to a few shows when i was on the lookout for my first lab nearly two decades ago, but i came away none the wiser

I'm with AB, if your dog is happily eating wet mix and raw meat bone then i'd be feeding wet mix and raw meaty bone. I'm a raw feeder my 3yo labby only gets raw and my 8 week old girl gets a mix of raw and kibble as her breeder requests this. When she's about 12-18 months old i'll remove the kibble completely. Contrary to popular belief (outside DOL) dogs can eat a raw diet and live a healthy, nutritionally well balanced life without kibble and actually enjoy it!

She was in the ex pen today for about 20 minutes while i had to do some chores. She howled and carried on even when i was in sight but i just ignored her. She had lots of toys in with her and a water bowl. After about five minutes of carry on she fell asleep. Her crate is filled with a pillow/snuggle toy at the back, her blankie and some chew toys so it's very snuggly. Sometimes she makes a fuss about going in but she's getting better pretty quickly. I'll be doing a lot more work with crate games but the first days are more about just settling in and getting used to us. Brown dawg started playing with her this afternoon but it escalated too high too quick and he bowled her over; she was on lead and he was off. So i separated them quickly but still praised him for playing with her and for disengaging from play when i asked him. He's still very much focussed on me and i want to try and get that with her too, but i can see that she's wanting to bond with him the most; so i'll be working on that and only letting them have supervised play together. I don't know if i'll achieve it since i really don't have separate runs for them etc...i'll just play it by ear.

Roova, last night i decided to set the alarm way outside of what i thought Laiken would cope with to give her the chance to wake me since i knew that she probably would since she did the night before when she needed to poop. I set the alarm every 4 hours and she woke me every two hours We've had some great progress with introducing them slowly. Wilbur has been very unsure of her and mostly ignored her for the first 24 hours. We had them both on leads for the first couple of intros but later yesterday i decided to take him off lead so he had the freedom to walk away when he chose, which he indicated he wanted to do. This morning after they'd both eaten separately (him first) and after she'd toileted we had another meet n greet with her on lead. He play bowed to her and then ran off like a goose playing solo soccer around the yard. After our play we all went back to bed; Wilbur had his weekend treat of being allowed up on the bed between OH and I and Laiken was in her crate next to my side. we took her out for a short hello on the bed. She got a little too friendly around his face and he gave a low growl so i removed her and he settled down. Later we all went back outside to watch OH clean out the water feature. Laiken was on lead and Wilbur off. We had lots of toys for them to play with and Wilbur kept trying to take them away from her (he's just like the classic only child lol). So i brought out some toys that had been away for a while and one that he'd rarely ever had. They were really good. We played fetch with Wilbur and let her get her mouthyness (new word) out on the toughies. I did a short session of clicker conditioning with her and some name work while i crated him with the door open in a drop stay with intermittent rewards. He's still very attentive and follows commands. After he play bowed to her and before he played solo soccer he went really silly with zoomies but kept coming too close and he bowled her over. I immediately told him to stop and he did and then came to sit at the heel. Our focus with Wilbur is to keep him feeling that his place hasn't been usurped and keeping to his normal routines and privileges. Our focus with Laiken is name recognition, clicker and marker work charging, redirecting to chew toys, bit inhibition, recall games and today we added the beginning of crate games by throwing kibble in it and having her go in voluntarily.

yes Laiken & Wilbur are half siblings; this was Carlotta's retirement litter so i thought i 'd better get in before there are no other chances to get a sibling