General Dog Chat Part II

[BiteyShark]

A place for nattering about our canine friends.

Old or new, feel free to come and chat any time

Avocados PestDog may surprise you and be on best behaviour good luck

You never know! Shame I'm also severely hungover 😵 If we fail it will be because he doesn't like his teeth being looked at or something - the actual obedience bit will be fine, it's the other bits that worry me!

Hi, I'm not yet a dog owner but hope to be. I've seen a Sharpei cross Beagle to adopt who is 5 and said to be good with cats and kids which is my main reason for being interested in him I don't care at all about designer breeds etc just what fits our circumstances. He isn't very wrinkly which I think is good as they can get skin infections because of all the wrinkles. Can anyone with more dog knowledge than me forsee any problems with a Sharpei X Beagle? Health wise or temperament wise?

ineed sorry don't know anything about those breeds.

Failed as predicted! Perfect on everything except for deciding to mouth me excessively when having his teeth / paws checked. He even kept his shoutiness under control until 30 seconds after we were told he'd failed when he decided to show his true colours

Have to try again in a few months!

Awww never mind. Sounds like PestDog did ok considering.

Not sure how BiteyDog would do on that as brushing his teeth involve a quick fight with a brush and grinding his nails is always a fun time not

Madam is keeping herself entertained with raindrops again.

In this weather Soubriquet she will be entertained for hours

Yep! She hates going out in the rain though so it's hard work getting her to pee.

She takes one look outside and goes nope!

I have to follow her out with an umbrella

We are starting the Bronze Good Citizen next week. I wonder what we will fail on.

Not sure how BiteyDog would do on that as brushing his teeth involve a quick fight with a brush and grinding his nails is always a fun time not

I have neither of those joys, thankfully - the vet always says that a raw meaty bone is the best toothbrush, and walking along the pavements of London each day means that his nails are naturally ground down.

We are about to have to start work on not mouthing me when I manhandle him, however! If I ever have to start clipping his nails I feel my fingers might become collateral damage.

We are starting the Bronze Good Citizen next week. I wonder what we will fail on

I'm sure you'll be fine. Three of the six dogs in my group passed, including one on a "dog ASBO" (as his owner put it) for nipping a jogger. The other failures were an 8 month old puppy who wasn't really ready and an ID tag technicality.

I'm actually really happy with how far PestDog has come - he's far, far better than he was when I first met him 7/8 months ago. Back then he had no recall, no obedience training beyond sit, minimal socialisation and would bark and lunge at a very substantial proportion of the dogs he saw on the street. A bronze test would have been unthinkable. He completely deserved to fail the test for mouthing me, but as that's the only thing he failed for I'm not actually too upset!

BiteyDog gets a deers antler which he grinds away at which helps clean his teeth but we use wet food so he really does need a quick brush. Unfortunately as it's mostly forest he runs about on his nails are a never ending battle and he hates his feet being touched.

Cocodog gets her nails trimmed at the groomers every 8 weeks, they even seemed to have trimmed her eyelashes last time which were incredibly long. Lord knows how they keep her still enough though, they don’t use any restraints. She is good with having her paws handled though because I brush and comb her nightly. She chews on an antler too and gets a raw marrowbone fairly regularly. I hope that’s enough😬

That’s a shame that PestDog didn’t get his bronze but at least you know what he needs to do to pass next time

Teatimetoller is always Very Good in any situation where he thinks he’s working so he’s usually the star pupil in training. He sailed through all his KC levels in a few months but that doesn’t necessarily translate to perfect behaviour outside a training or test context. At one point dh said he felt like taking his gold certificate out on walks just so he could prove that teatimetoller had been trained if he started behaving badly

Although BiteyDog is reasonably obedient I am not sure he would pass a bronze test as he seems to 'know' we are 'training' and plays up but is so much better outside of training even with distractions. I also spend a long time focusing on recall as teenagedom was hell so other stuff was less important.

I have also lapsed on our training given all the illnesses and my heart isn't back in it yet but hoping when things get back to normal we can pick it up a bit more.

I struggle with his nails. I took him once to the vets and they said they didn't need doing but they looked long to me. I will ask at the groomers again to see if they need doing. It's hard because they are black so you can't see the quick so I just try and grind them down every few weeks.

Can I have some of your rain Soubriquet ?

Good luck with the Canine good citizen Wolfie

So good to hear that Pestdog has improved so much. I must admit that Bluepuppy seems to have really settled since turning one. Amazing since he was such a teenage tear away at 7 months.

Had a lovely off lead on the beach today with one sore point. Imagine a lovely beach with golden sand and clean water, not too crowded despite it being a warm Easter weekend and it not being far from the city. It even has a section where dogs can be off lead any time. Great! Then idiots leave full poo bags on the beach. I’m sure they’d say they were going to pick them up on the way back to the car park but like the much talked about poo bags in bushes how many do? Makes me mad. If you’re not prepared to carry a small bag or two of poo around on walks then you shouldn’t get a dog.

One more thing. Bluepuppy got out of the backyard today It wasn’t his fault. I have an electronic garage door that leads straight into the backyard. It stays shut most of the time with my car out the front so Bluepuppy can’t escape. My dad was helping me with gardening today so the garage door was used a number of times. I was sure I shut it but it does strange things occasionally. Looked out my front window and there was Bluepuppy exploring the garden offcuts in the front yard. He didn’t have his collar or tags on either! Luckily when I called him he trotted straight inside but it certainly gave me a fright.

Great that he didn't go far/came straight back, blue Comforting for you to know!
I've just ordered a collar tag for mine, we're due to relocate to the UK later this year, so getting things ready!

I read somewhere that dogs are very location specific - so just because they can sit at training, they won’t necessarily understand that you asking them to sit at home means the same thing. I have a little feeling that if this is true, they are doing it on purpose.

I need to get SquirrelDog back into some kind of training class, more for me because I know that unless someone’s keeping tabs on me I’ll just let it slide!

17 different locations before they truly understand the command according to my trainer @Squirrels, though I don't know what the specific number is based on!

When we are out walking if I make BiteyDog sit and stay he does because he knows he will get a reward of ball play afterwards. At the gun dog training we can't reward him the same and he knows it and eventually gets bored and starts playing up for attention so we start off ok but it declines over time. At agility the reward is 'fun' as he wants to run through tunnels etc so he behaves and listens to me.

He is shit however at sitting whilst I put his collar or harness on, letting me inspect him all over as he will try and get away unless I hold him (but I can't blame him given what he has been through), and shit at not lunging on the lead when another dog passes. Oh well, work in progress

Just changed Indys harness for a Julius k9 one which he seems to prefer as he's walking much better and cant seem to back out of (so far!) I have seen another couple of bulldogs about wearing these so they must be ok.

I have met a lot of dogs wearing the Julius K9 harnesses. They seem good.
Aren't we all a work in progress Bitey? If people aren't perfect then why should dogs be?!
I'm googling like a fool and convincing myself it was saliva from cleaning herself and not a vaginal discharge (pyo?) I saw. I'm such an anxious bag of nerves about this dog. She's quiet but that's because we went to a show yesterday and she bounced me in the field earlier mid zoomies.

Wolfie they give us so much joy but so much to worry about as well . Not sure I would want to be bounced by WolfeDog, that might hurt .

BiteyDog has been sleeping most of day and night, so much he decided last night was really daytime and kept getting up. Today he's been with DH trying to get outside to me all day as I have been gardening so hoping he's suitable tired from barking that he will sleep better tonight.

She was surprisingly gentle. I stayed on my feet. Lucky really. I had my back to her and wasn't expecting it. The breeder tells me you're not a proper Wolfie owner until you've been knocked off your feet. I've managed 18 months so far!
She ate dinner and when I tried to sneak a look at her bits she chewed me so I think she's fine.
Hoping for a good night's sleep for you all tonight.

Happy Easter everyone. Hope we all get a good nights sleep 😁
Am feeling particularly worthy because have done church flowers for Easter at our local church. Am not a churchgoer but as a local florist offer my services...yellow, cream and gold. DH drove flower arrangements up in van and drove home while cocodog and I walked back through fields and woodland and met up with best pal border terrier Willow. I haven’t done any particular training with Coco around flowers but she is incredibly gentle with them. Comes into my studio, sniffs and lies down. Good girl.