Things you wished you'd taught your dog early on...

[GiraffeNecked]

I wish we'd cordoned off a bit of the garden for a toilet and trained to go there.

I wish we'd started off with her sleeping downstairs - she's now an on the bed dog - which husband loves - I'm not so keen.

I wish we'd done more lead training when little. She's grand off the lead - not so great on.

Our Goldie could open doors but we taught her to close them. Unfortunately, it did leave scratches in the paintwork.

At the Vets she would happily go into the consulting room and then close the door behind her. It caused a lot of amusement.

We got our big dog when she was 14 months old and she hadn't been in the car very much - if we'd had her from a puppy I'd have introduced short journeys very early on. For her comfort/enjoyment, but also because panic emissions from a 5kg puppy are much easier to clean up than those from a 35kg dog.