miss2

thank you :D

That bloke's partner is a bit of a dog. LOL as you can see there is no room for me in that massive bed

mmmmmmm

Last night spud was sleeping under the covers between hubby and I. he was curled up directly into hubbys butt. Hubby woke up in the middle of the night and sneeze / farted… never seen spud get out of bed so fast in my life! Poor boy wouldn’t come back to bed and I couldn’t stop laughing LOL

:) thanks everyone. looking forward to class and putting your advice into practice

Hope this is in the correct place and my apologies if it is not. Just wondering if anyone can recommend anywhere to buy cheapish agility training equipment. Only a newbie to agility and honestly not looking to spend a fortune. Looking for jumps, weave poles and a tunnel that we can practice at home with. Have looked on crazy sales and ebay but wondering if anyone knows of anywhere else? Thank you :)

Thanks guys, my fault for letting it get to that stage. Because the 2 of them usually play a bit when they are on lead I thought it was ok. We will now be doing a 3 second rule and I will pay more attention to how my boy is feeling! He is not allowed to go and meet other dogs until he is paying attention and not straining against the lead. Maybe if they other dog is not doing the correct thing either I should refrain from a meet. Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate advice and opinions :)

Wow thanks guys! That’s some great advice :) They are not in his face usually. The dog that he had the first snap at is a very hyperactive friendly dog that the owners do not have a huge amount of control over. He is not aggressive at all just really really excitable. He was on a short leash and kept going on his back legs and put his front paws on spuds face trying to get to him. I’m now thinking that this was the problem and that it set the mood for the rest of the night. My trainer says we need to teach him to walk away when he is feeling uncomfortable with a situation. You have pointed out a very valid point that I had not thought about, I need to see training class’s as exactly what they are - TRAINING CLASSES and not socialisation classes. I need to change my perspective of it and think of it as bonding/ work time for spud and I and not a big gathering of dogs for playing and chatting. I live in a small town and I think people are doing the classes as more of a social outing with there dog thing rather then a want of agility. Megan, your comment about your dogs value working with you is something that I don’t believe spud does. That is something I would defiantly like to improve on. When he completes something and gets rewarded I deliver it with a high pitched silly happy voice, usually throw in a lot of whoooo’s and good boys. He also gets a big ‘ rough pat’ I have not tried the tug as a reward, he loves it at home and would spend hours playing with it and grunting while its in his mouth if my arms could handle it. ** note to self, must teach the rat dog that I’m more fun then the other dogs!!** I have not done any clicker training, will look into it as well as the LAT. Spud works very well with hand signals, sometimes better then a voice command. Am looking up The Focused Puppy now :D Talking about your dogs love of agility, this will sound very silly but how do I know if he loves it? I know he Loves it after he completes a course when I give him his super happy praise but does he enjoy what he is doing? I know for a fact that he LOVES the tunnel. If I’m not paying attention to him after class and he sees the tunnel he will run straight at it and spends as long as possible racing in one end and out the other! Thanks again everyone you have all pointed out something that I really hadn’t though about and that is that training is for us and he does not need to play nor socialise with every dog! any other tips, hints or advice is very appreciated :) Squeeee I feel a bit better now and have improved my knowledge of my ratdog.

Thanks everyone. hopefully he was just having a bad day. one of the dogs was very in his face so that must have annoyed him. I have made an appointment with the vet for him for next week, a check up just in case can never hurt! Sheena, I like the 3 second rule. I guess I’m worried about having to correct this behaviour. I don’t want him to associate getting a correction with greeting other dogs. would he have the intelligence to be able to differentiate that the correction is only when he displays the behaviour rather then when he does a nice friendly meet and greet? Kavik, spud and I usually have to spend 5 minutes outside the training prior to going in so I can get his attention focussed on me. He squeaks and whines and pulls and pulls as soon as he sees where we are. I correct him as I have been taught until he calms down enough to heel as we walk. Relationship building/focus on me I find I really have to work hard for that. I use treat motivation and my voice. He responds well to positive praise and gets very excited and happy with him self when he receives this. I would welcome ANY tips on improving our bond. At class nearly all the other dogs are so focused on there owners/handlers and would do anything to please them. I feel like spud is only sitting with me because he has to lol Spud is a very independent dog. when I come home of an afternoon he gives me a brief crazy hello and then continues what he was doing. He would much rather sit outside and stare at the tree where he knows the rats are then come and sit inside with me. He is very intent on hunting ( we don’t hunt with him but all he wants to do is hunt mice, rats and rabbits), obviously from his breed . He really is a dream when playing off lead. If he’s not just having an off day, does anyone know why this behaviour has come on so suddenly?? Here’s to hoping I’m just being an over reactive mother

Last night at dog school ( agility training) my boy spud behaved very out of character. He displayed on lead aggression with 3 different dogs. One minute they are happily sniffing and play is starting and the next, he cracks it! growling, snarling, hackles up. Some back ground on spud. Spud is a 14 month old de-sexed jack Russell. He has been socialised at every possible opportunity with both people and dogs. He has been to puppy school, teenage school obedience class and now agility. Spuds favourite thing in the world is playing with other dogs, he LOVES dogs and would pick them over me to play with at any time. Spud spends time monthly with our family’s dogs which consist of Labradors, heelers and schnauzers. He gets along perfectly with everyone and has never had an issue with these dogs or any other random ones he meets on the street. Spud has been doing this training class with these dogs for 6 weeks now and has never had a problem with any of the dogs up until last night. After it happened the third time I burst into tears. I feel upset and frustrated, I feel like we have done everything possible to bring him up in the right way, ensured he has been socialised etc. and now I’m met with a potential lead aggressive dog. Clearly he was feeling uncomfortable with those other dogs and he reacted badly to them rather then just walking away but I don’t understand why he is doing this behaviour now. He is an adolescent male I guess….. Anyway, sorry for the long post, I just needed to vent as I’m a little frustrated and upset

hey tumbleweed. he has tested it a few more times that i have seen. he looked at it, knew it was there but decided to risk it and try anyway as the urge to chase rats in the shed was just to much... he got zapped and from what i have seen has not gone back since. he still races along the fence line when i leave for work of a morning but so far so good. :)

Ok so set it up and he ran to one of his favorite dog spots, got zapped, screamed. Waited a couple of minutes, went to the next spot, same thing. Tried a 3rd time, got zapped yelped and had now gone to bed... He tested it 3 times in 5 mins!

Yep thanks sheena. That's what I meant. I'm a bit of an over protective mother but I can't have him escaping any more! Hubby's currently whipper snipping the fence line so we can set it up!

I bought a Gallagher b10 will try it tomorrow! Fingers crossed thanks again everyone

thanks Pepe001, if anything ever happened to him and i hadnt done everything possible to fix it i would be beside my self. below is the fence in question.

Thanks everyone. I have done a bit more research and am now slightly worried that a collar style could possible malfunction..... A normal electric fence, would that seriously hurt a 7 kilo jack Russell? Railway sleeper is a good idea... I'm just on my way to work so will take a pic of the fence line and reply in more detail soon Thanks again!

Thanks guys. So cheap option is a no go then! I hadn't thought of the mesh option. On my chook pen I have mesh that comes out a foot long from the fence, the fox digs right at the fence line and doesn't think to go back a bit I might try that. He's a highly intelligent dog and only little so I'm worried how much a zap would hurt him. I will keep researching and look at sureguard thank you:) Right now I'm having a coffee and the little sh$t has just made a new hole and is off exploring grrrrrr

Hi everyone. I have read through some if the previous posts about my question but still in need of some advice please. We are having some problems with our dog escaping the back yard. Our back yard is about 1/2 an acre. We are on a property and whilst after he digs out he doesn't leave our land the point is he can't continue to do this. We rent the house on the property and the land and paddocks are leased to a farmer so there is always some one driving down our drive way and I'm worried he will get hit. He digs out and goes and chases mice in the shed. He is smart and makes sure to put him self back in the yard by the time I get home. Every day I fill a hole and the next day there is always a new one. i can not do anything to the fence as its a rental so now I'm looking into invisible fence or a standard electric fence. Can anyone offer any opinions on which is better? I'm worried about how much the shock will hurt him ? I read a little about e collars but from what I can tell I have to be there to administer the correction? Any help or other suggestions would be great as he is getting locked up in the patio during the day until a solution can be found. Oh also, spuds favorite thing is to chase rabbits outside our yard. The fence line in question has our only entrance gate to our house. I'm also worried that using a shock of some sort will make him to frightened to leave the yard through the gate when he's with me.

oh my goodness waldo is cute!! when schnauzers attack lol sorry ill stop with the pics now hehe

Love the cobwebs Rubystar and agree with you with the sungglebutt ;)

i have noticed an increase in back yard breeders for this breed since there popularity has risen lately. we got all ours from breeders here on DOL. we were on the waiting list for 8 months with our last one ( coconut, drove me crazyyyy waiting lol was worth every days wait in the end. i now also have a jack Russell WOAHHHH talk about different personalities lol

i have had minis all my life. risole, rosie, schnebbie, betty, jigga and coconut :) Jig is the only male i have had and from personal experince i have found Jigga to be a bit calmer and more placid then the girls. in saying this they all were/are excellent dogs - my favourite breed in the world. i dont think i could say either sex was more loyal then the other.

and gazing out at the world

spud and his brothers and sisters