fainty_girl

Great photos everyone Here are some more from yesterday: And looking rather psycho before jumping for a ball

Cool photos Kirislin!

My sister took some pictures of my dog Tilly jumping for her ball at the park ;) If you've got some, add pics of your dogs jumping as well.

I noticed today that Tilly leaked twice. On Friday she went to the same park and ran & swam for about 65 minutes (I shortened her run slightly). Yesterday she just had a shorter run later in the evening at a different park, without any swimming. Do you think I should take her to the vet to get checked out? Or just keep an eye on it?

Yes it is definitely possible that is what happened Kirslin. Tilly was very tired when we got home too, normally when we get home after an average run she will get a bit silly running around excited before tiredness kicks in. But she didn't last long yesterday and just played with her soccer ball for about a minute then went straight to sleep.

Yes Tilly is desexed and was done when she was about 8 months old.

When I took the dogs out yesterday evening, my Kelpie X Tilly (who will be approximately 2 next March) ran and swam pretty much non-stop for 80 minutes (which is normal for her) and at the park she had a massive drink of water before we left. A few hours later she was asleep snuggled into my legs on the lounge when I noticed that she had done a wee on the couch while she was asleep. She had never done that before and did not look impressed when she woke up! She leaked more urine after this too so my dad took her on the lead for a walk outside, and back home later on she leaked a small amount again. When she was younger on a couple of occasions after a particularly large amount of exercise she has done a wee inside before. But normally she is absolutely fine and is housetrained. Is this anything to be worried about? She definitely drank more water than normal at the dog park!

Your dad shoots possums? That is terrible! I know a while back when I contacted WIRES I was told that in NSW they are a protected species...not sure about Tasmania, but regardless that is no reason to kill an innocent animal. How disgusting that your dad shoots possums then leaves them out there for the dog to eat ...Leave the possums alone and stop the BC barking by bringing her inside.

Awww don't wish that! One of my dogs went through a stage of being a possum serial killer...not good! Thankfully she is well past that stage now and is too lazy to be interested in them!

The dot painting arrived last week in the post, so just thought i'd update with another pic...

I just sent an email to the training company. Definitely not going back there now!

Do you think I stand a chance of getting a refund if I call them up? When I rang their call centre to book in I spoke to two different people and they both assured me that they would help with a dog that pulls on the lead. The headcollar brand that they were using was the gentle leader...like any other headcollar, surely you aren't meant to yank on them or drag along a resistant dog. That is correct isn't it?! I looked up the K9 force website but saw that they are about 2 hours away from me. Is there anybody closer to the northern beaches that you would recommend? Or is K9 force definitely worth a long drive?

I think you're right...private trainer will probably be the next step I think. There is no way i'd want that trainer to drag Tilly along if she was wearing a halter. I was hoping to get some support to see if it would be possible to walk her on a normal collar. Tilly doesn't pull when she wears her halter, but she gets very sooky. She goes from being extremely enthusiastic and pulling full-on without the halter, to being sooky and wanting to lay down and hide in between my legs instead of walking with the halter on. When she hasn't got a halter on and is off-lead she is very toy driven (she has a favourite squeaky ball that she will do anything for and I play tug-of-war to help with her recall when we are out). At home she is very food driven, but if she's offleash somewhere the treat has to be something she really loves (banana or roast meat) to really get her interest. The problem is, when she's wearing the halter she is so sooky that she's not very interested in food and she can't/won't play with her squeaky ball. She loses her enthusiasm and confidence when wearing the halter. I don't have a problem with using devices for dogs that pull, as long as the dog is comfortable with it. Tilly isn't comfortable wearing a halter, so that is my problem with it. Have really yummy treats, you are going to need treats or toys that are more interesting than all the other dogs and new place. I would even go as far to say give her a very small dinner the night before so you know she will be really hungry, if food is her highest reward. Public trainig is like asking kids to do homework at Dreamworld, needs to be very rewarding of it's not going to happen. Often treats or toys that they love at home with no distractions just dont cut it when they are out. IMExperience home cooked food is better, you need food that she can swallow quickly and easily, chopped steak, sausages, cheese, liver, devon or what ever she goes nuts for and something that doesn't crumble and drop everywhere. I find a mixute of all of the above works well. If you are going to use a halti in class, train her to get used to it at home this week. If you are not happy to use it, tell the trainer and they 'should' come up with another plan for you and your dog. Does your dog love toys? She looks like a breed that should. When the trainer saw I was really struggling when Tilly was on a normal non-slip collar, he said he would come and help me. Shortly after he went over to another dog and was then about to approach me with his own halti to put on, so at that point I explained that Tilly gets very sooky wearing her halter and he said she would probably get used to it after a few weeks of coming here and getting treats and positive reinforcement, etc. The trainer never once took Tilly's lead and tried anything with her. And yes Tilly absolutely loves toys, but gets so sooky with her halter on that she's not interested in toys.

It just sux...I had to pay upfront too. I will probably try going there next week again, ignore the advice that is crap and to see if the trainer is game enough to demonstrate with the more challenging dogs like Tilly. Walking two lengths of the park trying to get a dog to heel with treats isn't going to work for a dog like Tilly, who REALLY pulls on the lead. The northern beaches Thanks, I bought a couple of other types of treats at the supermarket...chicken liver treats and that new schmacko popcorn. Tilly went nuts for the schmacko popcorn when I was practicing the 'stay' command at home, so i'll try them next time around.

looking at her dog I doubt very much she will be tired :D Very true Rusky...Tilly is a Kelpie X so she doesn't tire easily. She still pulls on the lead if she's tired too. Well the obedience class was pretty average and Tilly was a pain in the butt...the company said they help with dogs that pull on the lead. But instead, the puppies and dogs and like Tilly who pulled got head haltis put on pretty much straight away (the trainer had several). So I used Tilly's own black dog training halter, which Tilly was not impressed with (she went from being way too hypo to sprawling herself out on the grass with a sooky face). The trainer was encouraging the people using the haltis to yank the leash with quite a bit of force for a correction . One puppy was pulling backwards trying to get out of the halti and the trainer continued to pull the puppy towards himself, making the poor thing give a yelp. Tilly wasn't very interested in the treats I bought her either to make things worse. She preferred the trainer's treats!

Ok, thanks laffi

I signed up for a 6 week obedience course for Tilly and I and will be going for the first time this morning. Should I give Tilly some off-leash exercise at a park before driving to the class? Or would it be better to take her there without having given her a run that morning? The main thing I want help with from the instructor is to get Tilly to stop pulling on the lead.

I stumbled across an American seller on etsy.com (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=621) who does dot paintings of any character. I sent her a photo of Tilly asking if she would be interested in doing a dot painting of her, and she was (although it was the first time she'd had to do anything like it). For an 8 x 10 painting on canvas board it only cost USD $15.00 + $5.00 postage. So a very fair price! The etsy seller has put photos of the painting on her flickr site below, and it is being posted to me at the moment : http://www.flickr.com/photos/giddygirlie/4051098683/ This was one of the photos of Tilly that I sent through: Just thought i'd share!

Thanks everyone for your replies . I suppose I haven't really desensitised her to the halter. Just given her time to relax before putting the halter on. I haven't noticed any irritation on the skin on her face...the other things that i've tried have rubbed her fur off and left her with red skin. I've tried a check chain, cesar millan illusion collar and black dog training collar and all have irritated her skin. Before buying the halter I tried Tilly with this style of Black Dog training collar, that was meant to be gentle and not rub off fur: http://blackdog.net.au/images/bdw/products/TC30Blue.gif And it rubbed off her fur and left her with red skin, even on a short walk with only a little pulling. Is there another brand of martingale collar that would be better? I actually didn't mind the style of collar (although Tilly was still hard work on the lead), but I felt terrible when I saw what it did to her neck. Yes i've only tried the Black Dog version.

I recently bought Tilly a Black Dog training halter and it has worked really well with stopping her from pulling on the lead. The problem is that her confidence goes down when she's wearing the halter. She is normally a confident and enthusiastic dog, but she becomes pretty sooky when wearing her halter. I should mention that she hasn't worn the halter a lot yet, because she normally plays off-lead at parks for exercise, so it is not something she wears frequently. The past two weekends I have brought Tilly along to some busy weekend food markets, and she has worn the halter. She was very well behaved at the markets both times, but was very sooky. If I stand there waiting she tries to go in between my legs to hide, or will lay down on the ground and look sad, or she will try to rub her face on my shopping bags because of the halter. She was happy to get pats from strangers though (as usual), but she was sooky with them too (a father and his daughter wanted to pat Tilly - the father was crouching down, so Tilly tried to hide between his legs ). She didn't try to hide herself from anyone else though and she got plenty of pats from a lot of people afterwards. How can I build her confidence so she feels more comfortable wearing the halter? Tilly also has sensitive skin, so the halter has been the one thing i've used on her that doesn't rub her fur off and irritate her skin, so I don't want to give up on it just yet!

That's a great tip fainty_girl. I have recall issues with Odin (elkhound) when he is in a highly excited mode. Food treats don't work. I could stand with a piece of fresh roasted chicken and he would ignore me. But recently I have started playing with him when he comes to me and that seems to work well. I'll try the tug-of-war trick. I'm 100% sure it'll work since he loves tug-of-war. Tilly is the same...when she's super excited out of the house she's not all that interested in food. She loves tug-of-war and it has definitely helped with her recall. She's not perfect by any means, but it has definitely made a difference. It is also handy to use if I notice something nearby that I want to keep her away from (eg. a skateboarder or a dog on the other side of the road, etc). Distracting her with tug-of-war works well.

Are your dogs allowed to swim in the lake? Is it part of the dog park? If they are allowed and you trust them offlead maybe you could take them directly to the lake first, let them swim and tire themselves out, then work on recall after their swim. A tip I got of DOL was to use tug-of-war for recall and this has helped with Tilly. I do a certain whistle and if she starts running back to me I take a rope toy out of my bag and playing tug-of-war to reward her, or occasionally I bring out her favourite squeaky ball and let her have a chew. Sometimes I also walk in the opposite direction from Tilly and she will come running after me. Positive reinforcement works well with Tilly as well when she comes back to me...eg. giving her a pat and telling her "good girl". My other dog Jessie has a really effective recall with treats and will always recall for a schmacko. I just have to call out her name or the word schmacko and she will run back immediately.

I normally listen to music in the car and i've noticed that Tilly is particularly whiney (cries more than normal) if Radiohead is playing.