hankdog

So I come in from the garden, hot and sweaty and looking forward to the last bit of pepsi, then I remember the only trick this dog came with is the ability to pop the top off a drink bottle and skull the contents. Nice Jake! Love Blaze Gertrude, he seems to be about to leap right out of that picture. Harvey channeling beautiful again, just want to give him a big cuddle.

Beautiful, will need to keep putting photos up I'm afraid!

If anyone asks I'm always telling them how Jake just had wonderful breakthrough and the other day my OH said "if he's always doing these great things why is he still going off at other dogs". So yes one step forward. one back and two sideways, and you just have to keep celebrating the little victories. Like you I also think I'm probably not the right handler for Jake but he didnt have a choice so that's it, he's stuck with me. I didn't realise that you had suffered a double loss such a short time ago, that must have been very hard. Maybe Zig was sent to be your distraction. I'm not religious but sometimes I beleive the universe just gives you stuff to deal with. One day I was explaining Jake to a stranger and I told her he was a rescue dog. She looked puzzled and asked me "What does he rescue?" "Well he rescued me from being a sad, lonely old woman!"

Excellent progress Staffyluv, you've certainly turned around very quickly. I always thought I'd get Jake to obedience after 3 months then pushed it out to 6 months, chances are he's just never going to be able to be that close to other dogs. He is a clicker training genius, at the moment I'm working on getting him moving between two hoops, it'll be a good way to get him excercise if I put one each end if the garden.

I have a cool coat and they do work.I don't walk him in it but put it on after. I have a bulldog so overheating and itchy is part of the game. If you go to the health part of this forum there's a list of all the antihistamines that can be given to dogs. Zyrtec made him too sleepy so now we use polaramine. I think you just have to try to find whichever suits him. It's really frustrating hope you sort it out without moving to the poles.

Double post...sorry

We had a bulldog name Eric, I was pregnant at the time and OH called the bump Eric the halfabee, so we kept the name going. Next dog was a RSPCA dog and came with the name Hank, so I decided the universe wants me to have dogs with four letter names in alphabetical order. Next dog will probably be Kano, or Lila, Rooster is Frankie after Rocky Horror and Lola the frizzle chook because I didn't know if he was a she. Sophia the ginger chook is beautiful like Sophia Loren and little Maybelle who weighs in at 900g is just dinky.

Hey Corvus anytime you want to "accidentally" teach that to Jake I'll post him to you. Kivi is awesome. There's definitely different levels of behaviorist, I'd try find one who has a dog they work with so you can run set ups. As Salukibel said above it's hard to sort out your dogs behavior if you're practicing on just any dog you come upon and can't predict the other dogs reaction. Vicki has a bunch of different dogs and Jake can be feral and they don't give him anything back so we can just focus on what he's doing. It's also helpful if you watch your trainer handling your dog, the timing and body language can be subtle and Jake learns stuff so quickly off Vicki. LAT is really helpful, I fumbled around trying to get it right forever, Vicki got him into it in one session.

I think the heads together shot could be a poster it's so lovely. Makes me a little teary thinking of two fosters cuddling together.

I don't have a problem with breeders making a profit. Produce a good product and charge accordingly, produce a great product and charge more. You breed your dogs, treat them well and that's your business from which you should profit, put some of that profit back into the business and your dogs will benefit, if you're running on a shoestring that won't benefit your dogs. I think a lot if people get confused between making a profit from a well run business and a puppy farm. Dogs can live happily within a well run breeding establishment, I don't think they "need" individusl pet status nearly as much as people want to think. Social time with other dogs, excercise, food and all the other dog things are necessary if people aren't a central feature of their life I think they really don't miss it.

Loving the new tiles. Skye's are just gorgeous too.

Oh dear Snook, a few more grey hairs for you. Hooefully the tremors are a once off. I think Justice is a huge inspiration. almost because he does show you that occasionally he is still bothered by other dogs but most of the time he is able to manage himself. You're a top dog Justice!!

haha it's late I'm tired but if you toggle tlcs' pictures up and down you can nearly see Tully poke her tongue out.

Scares the heebeejeebies out of me but looks like such fun!

Happy Gotcha Lucy. Lucky girl to have such a patient mum and brother.

Your new camera must have anti ageing effects Impatiens, Harvey looks like a puppy in that pic.

Oh dear Gertrude that's not a samoyed I assume, just the fluffiest husky ever. (apologies if I get the breed wrong, not too sure of the difference between all the large fluffies). Jake had his "happy first gotcha day this week". Not too happy with his hat but loved liking the cake bowl. ETA. Well done Clay!

Ahhh Stan you've finally found the perfect excercise spot!

Wasn't really going for a backlit shot but kookaburras were not being very considerate about the position of the light.

I'd love to, this is one of my favourites.

Happy gotcha day to Jake, the sweetest reactive dog in the world. In the last year I have... 1) learned that LAT has one meaning, CAT two and BAT three. 2) shown me that I have a lot to learn 3) given me the determination to lose 9kg and walked me so much I have kept it off 4) filled my head with so much dog behavior information soup that does sometimes make sense 5) made sure I never have to wait in the queue for the vet 6) since I sucked up the embarrassment and went back to the coffee shop no more queue for me there either 7) introduced me to my lovely trainer, Vicki 8) made me figure out how to access an Internet forum 9) made me figure out how to use my camera to take pics of your gorgeous mug 10) made me part of this excellent forum with so much positive support Happy gotcha Tubby, the first of many!

I was on the fence about whether this was poor taste but when I read the moral at the end I thought its great. The dog has a disability, he has a family of dogs and humans that love him and looks like he gives life a good go. Good on them for loving every scrap of him.

Can you add me to the list of people waiting to read that paper please Corvus. Thanks Megan, I have the BAT book but I should actually read it again. I've read bunches of stuff and it's all got a bit mixed up in my head, plus I never seem to remember it in the heat of the moment. I have several cue words that I use to remind me what to do. Yea I'm the crazy lady who talks to herself with the loopy bulldog. Just a funny moment today, I saw an oncoming dog that I know is slightly reactive so headed for a clump of bush, a second dog suddenly appeared around the corner and so the other reactive dog bolted towards my bush. I had to stick my head out and yell "sorry this bush is occupied". Luckily he recognized me and scarpered off down a driveway. See if there were only reactive dogs in the world there wouldn't be a problem. ETA. just watched the video and it's confirmed, I'm in love with Kivi.

Thanks Corvus, again. I have taught Jake to "scoot in"I think you mentioned it before and he does it on command and did it a few times when we were working the other day. Jake is on Prozac which I do think has helped. When Steve saw him he did mention he thought he was possibly depressed. I have a thundershirt and have used it on cooler days and trued using it wet but until winter I cant really use it on a regular basis. He generally doesn't explore, the first few months I had him he wouldn't wee on a walk and would wait till he was home, he does now and will sometimes have a sniff around which puts me in a pickle because whilst I like that he's relaxing I also need him to be perfectly at heel so he knows he's under command. At the moment I'm working on "close" as in heeling right in and "free" heeling but allowed to sniff and lurk along. The confound with keeping him at a far distance is his eyesight, we don't think he uses both eyes at the same time and swaps which eye he pays attention to. If he's running to you it's easy to see him swivel his eyes so that one looks at you and you can imagine that this would make things he's not looking at come and go which probably adds to his confusion. Vicki did say the stuff we are doing now is operant conditioning and yes it's fine tuned stuff. We did start to see him making some promising decisions last week and to be honest I was expecting him to be a lot worse than he was. He was quite anchored to me and did get in between my legs a fair bit which was interesting given he was double leashed and one leash was strapped to my waist. I was just blown away by the confidence of Vicki's dogs though, if I ever got a puppy I would be very sure to take them to her for socialization classes early on. I think the next bit of training will be tough, I'm more of a butterflies and roses person but I'm also fairly persistent so I guess we are just going to see if I can outlast a bulldog. Thanks again Snook and Corvus, I do rely quite heavily on your support.

Just beautiful, Thankyou I'll be rewatching the videos.