Woof! Bark! And also Whiiiiiiiiiine.

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Alice the Camel Mar 2016 11:10am, 11 Mar 2016 2,590 posts	0 Alice the Camel How exciting - Cushla's on Cruft's TV NOW! Charlie is listening attentively...
BaronessBL Mar 2016 11:31am, 11 Mar 2016 5,289 posts	0 BaronessBL Bless him. I might get Wanda to watch the agility at some point I think!
Red Ant Mar 2016 11:33am, 11 Mar 2016 2,803 posts	0 Red Ant Dexter used to do that with his treats UTRAB. However when the vet pointed out that he was overweight and had to cut down on his food... he suddenly started eating his treats when we gave them to him as we went out. He's really good when we go out to work (gets in his bed waits for his veggie stick and is completely calm). But over the last six months Dexter has started to bark and rush towards the door if we don't say goodbye to him, for example if I or my partner nip out to buy a quick pint of milk then he barks as if to say how dare you forget to say goodbye to me! If we say goodbye and give him a stroke he doesn't mind then and goes and gets in his bed!
BaronessBL Mar 2016 11:42am, 11 Mar 2016 5,290 posts	0 BaronessBL UTRaB - is your dog with you at all times when you are in the house? Where does she sleep? One of the things we have to practice for our Good Citizen test is what they call 'Relaxed Isolation' - ie the dog is left alone somewhere. This aspect of the test used to be so that you could tie the dog up outside while you went in a shop but that is perhaps not as safe as it used to be so some tests are now just leaving the dog on its own in a room while you go in another room - the dog is not supposed to make a fuss, scratch the door etc while you are elsewhere. That might be something you could do every day (or even a couple of times a day) initially leaving her alone for just 30 seconds and going back to her (but ideally when she is quiet or you will be 'rewarding' the anxious behaviour). Once she gets used to you leaving her on her own in the house while you are elsewhere in the house then you could build up to going outside for a few minutes and coming back in again. When we got Wanda we always had 'humans' half hour' where she had to stay in the kitchen and we went in the living room to watch TV - although this was more to do with the fact that our kitchen has a tiled floor and we didn't know if Wanda had any house training so she was confined to the kitchen only for the first couple of weeks until we were confident that our carpeted other rooms were 'safe'!
BaronessBL Mar 2016 11:44am, 11 Mar 2016 5,291 posts	0 BaronessBL RA - I think dogs do like their routine. Wanda always has a few 'bedtime biscuits' which used to be a bribe to get her to the back door and then into the garden just before she went to bed. Quite often now she will ask to go out and put herself to bed sometimes a bit earlier than we go to bed, but even if she does this and is clearly settled for the night there is a lot of growling and fuss if we then go to bed without giving her the 'bedtime biscuits'.
Red Ant Mar 2016 12:25pm, 11 Mar 2016 2,804 posts	0 Red Ant You're absolutely right BBL... and I particularly liked it when you were having to coax Wanda out by discussing various items of food. That did make me laugh!
BaronessBL Mar 2016 1:48pm, 11 Mar 2016 5,292 posts	0 BaronessBL So - especially for Alice - the first time we let Wanda off the lead (although I am sure it is documented on this thread somewhere too so you may have found it by now!) We had done all the letting her off on the pretty much enclosed playing field and taking it in turns to call her to us and she was fine, so we were relatively confident about letting her off the lead more 'generally' there too (she did on occasion go through to the football club side which is strictly no dogs allowed, but once she'd chased all the birds away she came back to us!) So we decided to try her off the lead out on a walk in the country side, just from one end of a path which is enclosed with a fence and very high bank on one side and a fence and arable fields on the other. At one place the fence to the arable field was a bit saggy and Wanda suddenly jumped over it and set off across the field into the next field (this is East Anglia where the fields are huge!). We called and whistled but to no avail we couldn't even see her. Luckily it was not long after harvest so all the fields were stubble. J set off across the one she had disappeared into - I ran down the track to cut off the corner and get into the next field. Much searching - no idea where she had gone or how far she would go before she either turned back to try to find us or stopped because she was lost (or even if at this stage she was looking for her previous home before Battersea) Eventually she returned to J - very pleased with herself indeed - and presented him with a bird that she had caught, presumably as a thank you present for allowing her off the lead Unfortunately in the heat of the moment J yelled at her to drop the bird (which she did and luckily it was shocked but otherwise unhurt). We used a long lead for all walks for quite a long time after that She's OK around those fields now but I wouldn't trust her still at Rabbits O Clock
Alice the Camel Mar 2016 2:23pm, 11 Mar 2016 2,591 posts	0 Alice the Camel Oh heck Baroness - that's exactly what I'd be worried about! What a nightmare. I guess part of it is knowing your dog and what you can trust it to do or not do. But there's always that moment of inconsistency to worry about - the "what if?" scenarios
Alice the Camel Mar 2016 2:28pm, 11 Mar 2016 2,592 posts	0 Alice the Camel Last night at Puppy School we were told to learn a trick to show in week 6. I've been teaching Charlie "paw" this morning and he seems to have picked it up quite quickly. I'm going to try "roll over" tomorrow, but did anyone else do or see a really impressive, unusual trick? Back somersault or the suchlike? I want to end on a good note - I might have the most hyperactive, over excited pup in the room but I reckon he could shine at tricks!
Sharkie Mar 2016 2:54pm, 11 Mar 2016 8,957 posts	0 Sharkie We did a sequence of tricks I put together... sit, lie down, rollover ...play dead. PAUSE. Then I happily shout 'come alive' and Jess jumps up happily alive again. That went down quite well! You have to have a good 'play dead' for it to work!