Jozlyn

What is "BARF"?

What breed is Amber? She's gorgeous!

x 2 It's a reflection of the times, everything is anti-bacterial this & anti-bacterial that. Watch out for the germs! We actually need germs to keep our immune systems active. People get sicker more often & worse 'cause everyone's so worried about "bacteria" I ate plenty of dirt as a kid, my Mum didn't steralise anything (except the preserving jars lol), I shared drinks with friends, I'm not dead & I almost never get sick! If raw meats are prepared & stored correctly the possibilty for salmonela bacteria is very minimal.

Should I up the size of her other 2 meals to make up for what she's not eating for lunch?

Abby is not eating her lunch, hasn't for about 5-6 days now, is she telling me that she no longer needs lunch? At only just over 4 months old I would have thought she'd need 3 meals a day until she is at least 6 months old. She does get training treats between meals, but I have already deducted the amount of treats she gets from her main meals so that I am not over feeding her. I tried searching the forums to see if this had already been asked but after an hour of fruitless searching I've given up and started a new thread :)

It's lots of fun :)

I'm not buying another crate! I'll find a solution! A rubber bath mat (suction cup type) or a piece of scoot guard might fix that problem.

I'll try the Vick's and see how that goes, if that doesn't work then I'll find a play-pen to put round it.

Good point! I guess she knows what's hers because I don't take it off her, I play with her with her toys? Thanks, I'll try that in conjunction with the other suggestions.

Yep, I've had 3 kids! I know the power of toy rotation :D

Anything that belongs to her. I never thought of that!

The dvd is exactly as Mrs Rusty Bucket & Fuzzy82 says. Swap the treats around till she's coming out reliably, then swap them back again to amp the crate value back up again.

Yep, we're the same. But she knows the "outside" toys are not to come inside! I got sick of picking up sticks and all the gross things she kept brining in lol Re-direction isn't working very well with her anymore, nor is going AH! at her. If I have a full on long play session with her she'll stop, but I'm half wondering if she knows that now and has trained me! I watch her like a hawk! Her toileting is still not that flash so I have to keep an eye on her to make sure I get her outside in time.

She has plenty of chew toys, lots of different textures etc. She gets bones. Brain training, when I can't walk her. She knows that she's allowed to have anything in her toy box and that everything else is out of bounds. Although she still hasn't worked out that that includes socks and tissues! Unfortunately given the layout of our house I can't stop her access to the chair she chews in it's current location, I will move it to a room that she doesn't have access to if I have to, but we use it a lot, so I want to leave that as a last resort. She doesn't chew on it a lot, the damage to it is still quite minimal atm. She mainly seems to have a go at it at night, I'm not sure why that is. Edit: What is a scat mat?

Need some ideas to stop Abby chewing furniture. I've tried "Stop Chew" the first couple of times she tasted it she had a fit, now I think she likes it I bought a can of lavender spray made with pure lavender oil from the chemist today, apparently dogs don't lavender, but that hasn't had any affect either! Tomorrow I'm going to just buy a bottle of oil and mix it water (Shannon Lush recipe) and try that, but I'm really not holding out any hopes for it. SO any ideas anyone?

I hadn't, but I have now. I didn't notice there was a page 2 to the menu with a trouble shooting section, so we'll have another go today. lol I had a little trouble with that too, as I couldn't get my arm up high enough in the crate to get her to sit. She worked it out eventually 'cause I just wouldn't let her have the treat (clutched like iron between finger & thumb) till she twigged. It was easy after that. Yeah, got my eye on myself big time for things like that. She's still quite good at training me, if I'm a bit distracted. However she's got the OH & kids fully trained

Yep, pretty much. But we were only at Stage 2, testing. where she was supposed to come out and then choose to go back in, but she didn't want to come out lol when I finally got her to come out, she just turned around and bolted back in. I actually couldn't get her to come out a 2nd time so I left her to it and I'll try again tomorrow. There was actually no solution for a dog that didn't want to come out! All of the dogs in the video just came out easily. Trust Abby to throw a spanner in the works, she's such a funny little character. Her recall is really good now, but I was only standing about a foot away from her (with my foot on her lead), clearly she didn't see any reason to come any closer to me. It's also not very far from where the crate was to the back door, maybe 5 meters or so, at the time it was the only thing I could think of to get her to come out as I was not supposed to lure her with anything.

Aint that the truth!

I was using boiled chicken "In" & biscuits for "Out" today. Tomorrow I'll retry with chicken for "In" again & cheese for "Out" and see how she goes. I also need to work on her "collar grab" as I had no idea how much she'd hate that idea! I'm really having a ball with her training now & so is she. She gets so excited when she see's the treat bag come down off it's peg

I started doing Susan Garrett's "Crate Games" then ran into a hitch when she just wouldn't come out of the crate I ended up running through the house and out the back door to get her to get out, then she just turned around and ran straight back in Abby in her crate.

I've put "sheep" her favourite fetch toy on a lead now :D

No, she still goes for food, I think she's a bottomless pit , ie she'll do the nose touches. Doesn't matter, I just played Hide & Seek with her. I was really just wondering if this was a general sort of issue or just Abby's personality. Thanks.

Given how much I stuffed up before finding these forums, I'm truly not willing to do it again, so I'll just wait until the books arrive, they should be here tomorrow. In the long run it's not going to make any difference if I wait another day, we've got plenty to do to keep ourselves occupied in the mean time. She didn't do it last night, she slept straight through so whatever was bothering her the two previous nights didn't visit last night :) My main concern was wether or not the behaviour was "normal" and whether or not I should try to "comfort" her or just let her go for it. Both questions have been answered so thanks everyone for the input.

Invest in a crate and sleep her in it. I have the crate, just waiting for my "Crate Games" book to arrive so that I don't make any mistakes.

ditto x 10 then add in - leaves, sticks, birds, insects, cars, people, dogs barking, etc, etc, etc.