Our Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (Adolescent Support Group)

[MonCoubousMonTourmalet]

Okay folks, let's head into late summer/autumn.

@YorkshireFelix Must be the day for naughty black spaniels to do disappearing acts. 😂 K hasn't collapsed since last time. But she has been close a few times, I think. She was a bit wobbly when she reappeared today and spent a good few minutes standing still eating grass.
Glad V's foot is getting better. That must be a relief. Why are there fireworks going off in September? Poor Vinny. It's a real pain now if dogs are frightened of them. It was so more manageable when they were restricted to a week either side of Bonfire night.

P is not resting at all. 🙈
Are you on the Beyond Adolescence thread?

@YorkshireFelix thanks for asking, he’s doing really well and starting to settle. He is doing well at night now, although did manage to turn the tv on at 4am the other night as we’d left the remote on the end of the sofa! His recall is pretty good, he likes to have a bit of a play with other dogs but tends to not go too far from me. We’re starting training next week, his lead walking is rather chaotic so I need some help with that. I’m mixing in scent work to his walks, just hiding his ball and letting him find it. It’s such a joy to watch him run and jump.
He's extremely soft and cuddly, still quite Velcro in the house though and we’re working on gradually building up time on his own.
So, so far, so good, but obviously still early days. We’re very smitten 🥰

For some reason in Bradford there’s fireworks going off all year round. I know some of it is cultural as there’s a lot of big Asian weddings and there’s always fireworks for those, but most of it is just antisocial and kids messing about. But it ramps up now and carries on right the way through to new year. Add it to the modded cars speeding around and driving like idiots all hours of the day, it can be ridiculously noisy!!

I do think it’s mad how fireworks are sold to members of the public and there’s no restrictions at all (apart from being 18+, which still doesn’t stop kids getting hold of them.)

Are you back at the vets this week?

Ahhh he sounds brilliant!! My spaniel is an absolute Velcro dog and has to be touching me 24/7 😄 but he is ok being left in the house thankfully. You will get there eventually I am sure of it.

Lead walking is still very much a work in progress here and I’ve been working on it since we got him at 8 weeks. Sometimes he is fantastic but other times he’s just too excited and lunges at things he wants to sniff. Those times are slowly becoming less and less so hopefully it continues! I am hoping it will improve a bit with maturity but I’ve found it one of the hardest things to train. There’s a couple of other spaniels locally who are very similar in age to Vinny and they trot along on the lead like they are in the show ring, and their owners have told me they have just walked nicely from day 1!! So I think it totally depends on the dog. Some are more crackers than others 😄

Let us know how your training goes!

@YorkshireFelix That must be so difficult for people and animals that are frightened by loud noises. I love fireworks, but I think they should make them soundless. There's no need for the loud bangs. My village used to do a big firework display. The year we moved here we were in the garden when it started. P shot inside and sat trembling in a corner. She didn't bat an eye at the garden ones after that.

I am going to see if I can take P in to see a vet today. They were supposed to phone me for an update, but haven't. I'm worried about her in general and my vets are closed over the week end.

I hope V's foot is still getting better and he behaves himself today.

@cashmerecardigans He sounds like he's doing really well. ❤️
All three of mine follow me from room to room. One is a foster dog and it was months before she would go into the garden without me. And if she lost sight of me, she'd panic and run around looking for me. It was a good few months before I could leave her home alone too.
I can't really help with the lead work. Mine are so rarely on a lead, that it's not something I have spent a lot of any time training. I did with my sprocker, as he pulled so much his chest was practically touching the ground. But it depended on his health as to whether or not he remembered to walk nicely.
P is 4 and has just decided to walk nicely. So there's hope for V yet @YorkshireFelix . 😂

@SpanielsGalore only 2 and a half years to wait 🤣

😂😂 That's the spirit. Think positively. 😁

I've just discovered it's Thursday and not Friday.🤦‍♀️ Which explains why I have two days worth of tablets left for P. It also means my vets is open tomorrow, so I don't need to panic.

No fireworks here yet, but I am slightly dreading late Oct/early Nov as Brie is quite noise sensitive. Bonfire night falls midweek this year, which is a sodding pain because it'll likely mean fireworks on two successive weekends.

Probably yet another pointless comment from me to be fair, but you're all the opposite from us with off-lead/on-lead. As you know, we only do lead work, so from day 1 it has to be good. Both loose lead and close control. With a dog of this size there is no choice about that, especially as she weighs more than I do now 😨

I will admit that there are many negatives to having a dog that can't run free. So we try to focus on the little positives.

Yesterday was manic in our village and the pavements are narrow for prams, kids and dogs. The girl is a complete hooligan at times, but I cannot fault her pavement etiquette. Our most used command is "wait" as she has to stand beside gate or wall without taking up much space. Yesterday there was a mummy with pram/hand holding child/terrier pup, taking up the whole pavement and making slow progress so we had to stand for ages. Such is village life.

Thankfully no random face grabbers or nose kissers yesterday though 😂

@Aubrielle She is fab. You can tell how much hard work you have put into her. Vinny pulled me over onto the pavement the other day and that’s just at 16kg so I can’t even fathom walking a much heavier dog.

One thing we do struggle with is busyness. It’s very busy with tourists here, especially in the summer, and that’s when the wheels fall off for us. He will sit and wait extremely well but as soon as we start walking again he will pull and struggle with arousal because there’s so much going on. The dream for me would be to be able to go to somewhere like a nice little town or a country house for a day out and be able to walk him around on his lead with no issues. But that seems extremely far off at the moment!!

I just have flashbacks to when we went to Skipton for a few hours earlier in the year and I was so horrendously stressed because he was a nightmare 😩 We are going away to Scotland in half term and it will be his first ever holiday, which I am looking forward to but also dreading in equal measure as I have no idea what he will be like.

@YorkshireFelix I have that dream too. I took P to Bourton on the Water once. My hand was red raw after a couple of hours of her pulling to say hello to the thousands of tourists. I gave up after a few hours and went back to the B&B.

We're in a touristy village too. Summer weekends are particularly bad, when the Manchester crowds descend. We tend to walk very early or very late during summer so it's more manageable.

Forgive me @YorkshireFelix , you know I'm socially awkward and my words sometimes come out wrong - but I think you'll be fine in Scotland. You need to put Skipton out of your mind. It won't be like that. Vinny is older, and hopefully you'll be more relaxed.
I honestly struggle with busy places and I know from experience that my anxiety sometimes travels down the lead. Less so with Algy, he had more attitude, but Brie is a sensitive soul like Finn was, and I think when I'm anxious, she's more anxious. I'm working on it. We've done those two Primary School leaving time walks this week as a training exercise, also a couple of rush hour pavement walks to face traffic.

The one thing I haven't done with Brie is town, shops, coffee shops, because I don't think she'd cope with it and nor would I. Baby Eris has probably had far more life experiences than Brie has, but I can't beat myself up over it. We can only do what we can do.

I worried loads about pupsy going with me to/from London because of how she’d react to the bustle but we got back this morning and again I was so impressed with her. She slept on the train both ways, and walked better to heel in the busy stations and streets than she ever would at home. Earlier at St Pancras everyone had to go up the stairs because the escalators were off and it was rammed and she just trotted next to me, stopping every few steps. I am always so surprised and so proud because I can’t see how I’ve taught her any of that really. I think it’s probably like @Aubrielle says about not being anxious myself – I’m just trying to get from A to B and haven’t got the emotional bandwidth to be worried about anything extra, so she isn’t either.

I think it also helps that she’s a bit older now. I always regretted that I didn’t start her on trains sooner but actually I think now a bit of maturity has helped.

Pupsy sounds bloody amazing and is clearly a credit to you @brushingboots

I suspect calm people rear calm dogs and children... so there is clearly no hope for Brie in that case 😞

Thanks both, hopefully he will surprise me! We have purposefully chosen somewhere we think will be fairly quiet as we originally wanted to go to the Lake District but it’s manic in the towns, especially in the school holidays. And you’re both right about my anxiety travelling down the lead to him. Im hoping we can find some good off lead walks and have a chilled few days.

I am sooooo looking forward to it regardless as we haven’t been away as a family for so long and DH never gets proper time off.

@brushingboots Pupsy is such a superstar. I honestly would be so thrilled if V could cope with different situations in the way she does.

@Aubrielle I try and avoid busy times but then I keep thinking he’s never going to learn unless we try and work on it. So I might do the same thing as you. We live literally a 30 second walk from the primary school so can easily head out at pick up time. He’s usually busy stood on the windowsill watching all the kids walk past 😄

I have to push myself @YorkshireFelix , puppy socialisation is by far the hardest thing for me and I messed up the early weeks with Brie. I really did.

Genuinely @brushingboots has done a far better job with her first than I have with Brie who is technically my 6th solo pup.

I'm sure half term in Scotland will be lovely. I used to live in Cumbria, and you're right - Ambleside/Windermere area in particular can be overwhelmingly busy during school hols.

@YorkshireFelix it sounds like you are well due a holiday!
We took M glamping (a term used very loosely) in the Peak District last October half term. He was 10 months old and was ok but very excited by all the new smells. It was great being able to take him on long walks but not so great when he wanted to pull us all the way to the bottom of Padley Gorge!
Our last holiday with him in June was much calmer, those extra 9 months had made such a difference.

@brushingboots I want to start taking M on public transport. He went on the bus a couple of times as a small puppy but not since then. I think I have been worried about him needing the loo, but he can do a long road trip so I’m sure he’d be fine.

@Aubrielle I think walking past primary schools at home time is a really good exercise. I used to do it every day on the way to collect my daughter. M is now pretty good at walking through crowds of small children. How did Brie get on? and how’s the desensitising to rattly traffic going?

@SpanielsGalore did you manage to get a vet appointment?

@Nella68 I did. Thank you for asking. 😊
Blood tests revealed P has severe pancreatitis. (I was worried about pyometra, so it's almost a relief.) The vet was surprised, as that wasn't something we'd considered and P isn't reacting to having her abdomen squeezed. She's tripled the pain relief and I need to switch P to a low fat diet for three weeks. And no treats! 😱

@SpanielsGalore poor old P. I have looked after humans with pancreatitis and they’ve had a lot of pain and been really poorly. At least you know what it is and also had her seen today x

My friend’s cocker had pancreatitis after gobbling down a portion of fish and chips that she found in the hedgerow. Has P been scavenging high fat food?

We're doing really well with the training @Nella68 , thank you for asking.

With noisy vehicles, she tends to now make eye contact with me for reassurance. We are managing it much better and she is spooking far less.
She will now calmly walk past the house with the barking GSD, so that is also progress.

She is happy to get in and out of the car now and we're making regular short journeys up to the moors for a walk, which she loves. We went up this morning and she had a run around on the lunge line. That reminds me, I haven't asked recently how @Bupster is doing with Bill's car issues.

With regard to people, young children, prams, dogs on leads, she has always been pretty good. We live in a mill village with narrow pavements and she will wait politely for people to pass. We seem to be getting a lot of positive comments about her behaviour now, which is nice.

So, it's all much improved apart from the fact that she still bites the lead when we're on the fields. There is no sign of her growing out of that, although I think you said Midge did.... Thankfully she doesn't do it on pavement walks, but on the fields it's still a battle and she jumps up and grabs my hands so I'm still full of scratches. But that's the only real problem now.

P has a really high pain threshold, and doesn't react at all. The vet said the only thing she noticed was that P looked to be squinting at her when we first went in, but then stopped and went back to normal.
She hasn't eaten anything different as far as I know. She has been on house arrest for the past 8 days as she's supposed to be resting her knee.
The vet said something about the pancreas reacting to other organs pressing on it, so maybe it's season related. I have no idea to be honest.

@Nella68 oh that gives me hope! Our disaster day out was back in April and I’ve avoided him taking anywhere else new since 😂 I’ve not taken him on public transport either. I never get the bus but we live on the train line to Leeds and Bradford so I usually get the train everywhere if it’s just me and dd. Maybe I should test it out and take him with us!

@SpanielsGalore oh noooo I am so sorry to hear that, poor baby. I am glad it’s not the worse thing though!! I’ve not even heard of pyrometra before. It sounds awful. Will the pancreatitis clear up with the low fat diet and medication combo? I know nothing about it!

@Aubrielle Brie sounds like she’s getting much more confident- it’s great when they look to their human for reassurance. It shows the bond.

M still has lead ragging session, but I keep a tug toy in my pocket to stuff in his mouth.

He was an absolute nightmare at agility the other day. He’s usually the calmest and I can put him in a sit and walk away without him moving. He was feral zooming around the field; jumping all the jumps, pinching the instructor’s knitted flask warmer and refusing to come back. It was embarrassing (but highly entertaining for everyone else). When I did manage to secure him he jumped and mouthed me. I was tempted to leave him there!

@Nella68 It has sounded as if Midge is doing really well in his training, so I'm sure you can forgive him a bit of an off day. He sounds like quite a character! I love dogs that aren't afraid to show their cheeky side, even if it can be frustrating at the time.

I carry a small tug too but Brie still drops it and grabs the lead. If I can keep her to the perimeter of the meadow and allow her a good sniff around, she's not too bad, but if I venture to the middle she goes into boisterous mode. She is the most playful dog we've had, but channelling it can be a struggle. We do a lot of play in the garden and that seems to be really important to her.

@YorkshireFelix I know nothing about it either. I'm going to spend the evening down a rabbit hole of pancreatitis and low fat foods. Hopefully it will get better on its own, but if her poos change colour and consistency she'll need antibiotics.

I'm just glad it's not pyometra and she won't die over the week end. Not that I look on the black side or anything. 🙈
Which area of Scotland are you holidaying in? There are so many lovely areas, I really should explore it more.