It was sunny enough for skinny dipping

Last weekend all three of us went out for run around the field at the top of Botany Bay. Grey was enjoying the trip out with his favourite man about the house. But as we neared the opening at the top of the cliffs that you can climb down, he'd zoomed down and was sat in his usual style in the sea up to his neck. We whistled the naughty little bugger and hid in the grass at the top. He zoomed straight back up and had to start the search. So after a scan of the beach below, which looked very quiet, I decided to take Grey and his dad down to the sea because it was such a lovely day. We're not supposed to be taking Grey on the beach because of how mentalist it can make him sometimes. But with his dad being with us, it was easier to keep him interested.

I decided to throw stones out of his reach in the waster making sure he couldn't catch them and break his teeth. We had a superb time and the sun was so bright and lovely. Makes me realise what a lovely place this is to live.

Zak George

Thanks to Clicker Solutions I checked out videos by Zak George a young dog trainging guy with a programme in the US. He's fuuuuuuuuun and great! Check it out.

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/zak-george-project/
http://blogs.discovery.com/zak_george/

A fantastic Day at Dog Communication Because Mutts Need Manners

Grey and I went to Surrey today to attend a group run by the lovely Laura and Penel Dog Communication. Quite honestly, the bestest activity event that we've ever done. It was brilliant. Grey was a right monkey as usual, but he seemed (well to my untrained eye!) to learn to handle himself better by his second outing in the field with the teaching dogs. Basically, if he went OTT, the teaching dogs stepped in and told him off. The other dogs were amazing and it was a lovely atmosphere. I feel really lucky to have somewhere like that within easy reach of where we live. We're definitely going again. I'm really looking forward to seeing him learn how to handle himself more. Perhaps it will have a knock on effect for other areas. And I think it will help me too. It's a safe controlled environment. No worrying while out on walks.

They think he's been slow to mature. Sounds about right. That's what Helen Phillips said too and another behaviourist we saw. 30KG of puppy.

It was all going great and then not!

Finally reporting back after missing the internet for a month. Grey and the coonie cats were making very good progress at living together. We managed to get Grey not to chase the cats, one cat to not run and at one point, we were all sat on the bed together more or less quiet. Not bad for the first two weeks. The coonies still growl at him and I think cuddles are a long way off yet. But still way way better than I'd feared we going through since moving house.

Grey and I have been practising more road walking on the flat collar. He's done really well. Lunging at vans etc has decreased 90%. Still has the odd one if he's really hyped about being out and for some reason switched on. But the fact that's he's manageable on a flat collar and I can walk him around is really great.

So tempering the good news are two incidents. One is that my other half now has a black eye after Grey bopped upwards while L was leaning over him on the square when we were locked out last week. It was a real smack and ouch. Poor L. Bad dog mum moment number one. Don't let people lean over the dog if you can't trust him to stay with all four paws on the ground.

Incident two is today we went out for a beach walk with two friends and their dogs who we've not seen for months. Grey was a awful. Really rude, rough and OTT with the lovely whippet dog the same age but a little younger than Grey. He had hold of him at one point and that is just not on. Pinning and having a jaws round another dog's neck is really really bad. He did improve by the end of the walk but lordie, it wasn't a good. So lots of work to do there with Mr Grey.

He definitely has a habit of behaving badly when other dogs are on the lead and also now I see if the dog is a bit smaller than him and especially it seems if we all out for a walk together rather than a quick meet and greet and move on. I'd been working of ways getting him not to run in to the other dogs. Having a retrieve trained in would be really handy at this point perhaps, because if I give him a toy at this point he would just parade around with it and then his recall goes to pot. I probably manage him when I'm on my own by playing the 'find it' game of blind retrieves, where he will bring it back to me and also come away from other dogs to do that. But if an object is thrown, he sees it differently and he runs off and parades and can become more of a tease. I hadn't realised that he would be so awful because I've not been doing linear walks with other people alongside. I'm still unsure how to manage those as he pulls so hard and I don't know how to stop and start and recue him back to me if I'm trying to keep up with people. Perhaps this is why I've avoided it as I find it hard to manage a 30kg pulling dog if I don't stop or change direction. I ended up popping him on the dogmatic today which I haven't had out for ages.

Oh Mr Grey. Never simple is it. He's now asleep under the table farting. Lovely.