The Road Refresher no spill dog bowl

 

Thing is with beardy dogs there is an awful lot of spillage. Especially with a dog like Grey who has a helpful habit of walking away from his bowl after having scooped up the water and opening and closing his mouth as he goes as if eating. There is an awful lot of water with a busy and thirsty slovak. This caused some problems with his duvet in the back of the car crate. So today the postman arrived with a road refresher bowl (in grey, of course!) Now we've got rid of the bowl mounted to the side of the crate that tended to slop water over when going over bumps. Happy days. We got the large one. 

 

 

Review: EZYDOG Cujo lead

Just tried out the Ezydog Cujo shock absorbing lead tonight and so far it's a winner. Had it on with a standard Pets at Home Comfort Harness. Took the jolt out of lunges forward and seemed to stop that kind of behaviour too. The bounce back seemed to disuad him from pulling forward. Nice to hold the handle too. So now having a look through the rest of their range as the chest plated harness looks nice too for deep chested dogs like Grey.

Here's a video of the Cujo

Review of the walkezee harness

I've tried out the walkezee harness this week on Grey and it wasn't a success. I didn't like the velcro strap that attaches the front strap of the harness to the normal collar. It seems to move round and the chest strap was often lob sided. It was quite a palava to get it on and then it's not supposed to be left on for free running. I hadn't realised it wasn't to be left on for offlead when I ordered it and that is a big minus for me. It feels like an over amount of equipment when it's on. I got the coupling connectors and they jangle. Making me feel like I was walking a guidedog. Then he seemed to respond better to the halti harness in terms of stopping pulling, which can be left on when offlead. So I'll be sending the walkezee back.

More walking backwards

I'm still working hard at lead training. I've found that walking backwards is still a great help when he's really starting to freak out and get over stimulated by the environment. I've also gone back to working him more on the gencon. He's less reactive to traffic on the gencon. I can't seem to get him to relax on it though. It's like I have to do as much work on that as flat collar training. if I have him on a short leash on the gencon he never ever lets up pulling into it. No wonder he hates it. So I have to do lots and lots of reinforcement now to get him to stop pulling on that and making it unpleasant for himself. Kind of makes it hard to have that as my from A-B tool. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

He does seem stressed when I put it on him. Even though it's put on with food. He grinds his teeth for the first part of the walk. By the time we are homeward bound he's ok.

We went back to the park this morning. Had a run around then more walking backwards in the center with him following me. He lunged at a line of mounted posties which was a shame as he'd been really good outside the sorting office the day before. But I think the difference was that he was already very excited at the presence of other dogs round the perimeter of the park and that he was on the lead and couldn't go and say hello. I managed to calm him down, put on the gencon and walk nicely home.

This afternoon we headed out on foot again. I decided not to take him in the car to see if we could lower his energy levels that way. It seems to make a difference. We went to the beach at the lido, walked along to the harbour and through the old town. I'd picked up lots of nice bones today at the butchers so he spent a long while chewing bones and farting under my desk. Lovely. Might be a hangover from being wormed yesterday. Who knows, but it's kept him busy.

Other bits of training was more 'up up' and 'off' yesterday.

Today's training

I tried out a little session in the bathroom of the silky leash method this morning. Went nicely. He had fun, got it and had some bits of hotdog. So all good. Went out to Bekesbourne for a walk. The sun was really out, so a lovely autumn day. Went a slightly different route and so he had to go on the gencon head collar for a stretch of the walk. He got really stressed by this as L kept walking slightly ahead. This really frustrates Grey. We stopped off at the vets, got him weighed: 27.75KG. Walked back to the car across the fields.

At home we ran through more of the silky leash method in the house which again went well. He was then hand fed his dinner as per the RRR DVD.

This evening we've played fetch with two balls to see if that encourages him to give one up any easier. He then took to hiding potatoes from the sack into his bed.

New stuff to try out: He got a large big dog sized nylabone. Also a front fastening harness from Halti.

Mmm... new stuff!

Two new things arrived in the post today. A scrummy new collar from Lupine, the Combo collar in a nice camo pattern called Bone Hunter. His leather martingale had pinched his fur out on his lower neck. The nice thing about it is that it has two D rings, so it can be put on as a standard collar, or attached in the martingale function. Lupine also guarantee the collar so if it breaks or gets chewed they'll replace it. Not had chance to try it on him yet as he's gone into kennels for a few days. He was really happy to see the guys at kennels again, so that was great. Still hard leaving him there though.

Second thing to drop through the door is the DVD by Leslie Nelson called 'Really Reliable Recall' bought from Canine Concepts. Great delivery service btw! I've heard great things about it, so will give that some viewing tonight. One thing I miss from not being in class anymore is seeing how other people do stuff timing wise.

A new leash of life

We had a great training session with J today. We tried out a few bits of equipment to see how he got on. The anti-pull harness worked to stop him pulling, but he was still sniffing. This meant he was still very boingy and not with me. The slip lead, he just pulled and pulled and he's clearly not ready for that yet till he walks nicely. The chain we didn't bother. What really made a difference was changing the tactic on the halti head collar. Instead of carrying on with the steering him back on it, he was on a short lead on the head collar end which restricted him from scenting the ground and kept him close to my legs. He seemed to relax into it and it enabled us to walk at a fast pace, which I think he prefers anyway. All in all a much better experience and I felt I had control. Grey was much more focused with his head up. He still got his run off lead, just that on it, he has to be in the game. I can now start taking him everywhere again with me.

I tried it out again this eve on my own and it was still much better. I then had a little go of just training on the flat collar and that was good too. So the pla would be to build up practise of walking in the correct position on the head collar, then to switch to the flat collar eventually.

New toys

Very excited appreciation of the lovely shakeable Petstages Toss and Shake:
Damn! I paid too much for that at Pets at Home. Oh well.

And the Orka Tube:

Gummy chops

Grey's lost most of his baby teeth now. He's ever so gummy, bless him. No idea where they've all gone to, perhaps he's eaten them! Now we need to monitor how the adult teeth come through and see if any further action needs to be taken.

We went to puppy class last night and we got a 'well done!' card and I got a chocolate. Grey got an extra bit of sausage. He did the down stay while I lay on the floor which was fun practicing this week in the park. He was much calmer in class in general and mostly sat or lay watching me rather than the other dogs. He managed to 'leave' of sausage on the floor for 15 secs and also a down stay of 20 secs in class too. So amazingly well done for a young pup.

I had been thinking of starting him with puppy gundog training, but might think again on it, as some friends have said they think he's too young for all that yet. They're right, there's a whole life of time for that kind of training and we can just carry on working on the basics and enjoying him being a pup.

He's also been much much better on the lead the last few days. I think having the back up of the gentle leader head collar has been brilliant. Just to get through those explosive 5 minutes where not even roast chicken can stop him from dragging me down the street. After he'd calmed down and got used to the idea of not being way up front, I took it off and just did the usual leash training on his flat collar. Not had to go back to the Gentle Leader in days.

Back to basics leash training

After being pulled down the street by a 21kg crazy hound dog in Hythe on the weekend, it seems like time to go up the ante on leash training. Just in time, the Kumfi Juster training lead arrived in the post. So up and down the hallway we went. CT for loose leash which he does really nice inside. So it seems to be when he's out and about that the crazy hound sniffer dog appears.


Tonight it's puppy class again. Not had much time to work on wait because of the extra leash training I've been doing. No prizes for guessing who's going to be pulled into the hall with the most distracted dog in the group.

Naughty moment of the day was when he decided to pull the dog bed across the floor with the cat sat on it. Cat wasn't amused.

End of a long day at the office

Busy day yesterday. Training in the park, visit to the shopping centre for the mission XXL dog bed, romp on the beach with Nel, zoom to puppy class, home to dinner and trying out the new duvet with Seal.

Crazy that things for humans are so much cheaper than things for pets. The duvet is from Tesco at £8. If that had been in a pet shop it would be well over £20. Now just to get the actual bed. Probably better to get him his own 1 bed flat looking at the size of his paws.

Puppy class was funny. I was a baaaaaad handler. Grey very distracted about the other dogs. Not in a barky way, but in a 'what? you want me to walk up and down here? There are dogs over there! Are you mad?' He did manage a lovely sit and wait while crowded round with other dogs. There was only one humping incident.

Treat Bags

One of the issues of clicker training is the need to wander around with accessible, often greasy tidbits. I've been wandering around with a horrible blue plastic bum bag on for the last three months. I resisted buying a bespoke dog treat bag as invariably they came complete with pictures of dogs on them. When I first got Grey I was poking around an outdoor sports shop, tentatively checking out winter coats for this winter's inevitable freezing beach walks in driving rain. They had a selection of chalk bags for climbers and it dawned on me these might be ideal. Delivering treats needs to be fast and so what's needed is a bag that keeps the treats off your clothes and pockets, but that enables you to get your hand in and out quickly. Treats in pockets or plastic bags in handbags don't work. So when someone on a dog training forum mentioned chalk bags, I've come back to the idea. The bum bag has to go. So I've ordered a patterned bag from homemadeclimbingstuff.com.

New harness

Wow! That has to be the fastest delivery of a quality item I've had in a while. Ordered a brown fleecy harness from Dog Games in size 4 one afternoon and it arrives the next day. It's lovely soft fleece and I really like the fact it unclips on both sides, so need to thread paws through, which makes getting it on a wriggling puppy much easier. So far, on the two outings we've had in it, it seems to have improved the pulling. At least he's not half strangling himself to death enroute to wherever he thinks it's reeeeeeeeeally important we get to NOW!

People have often commented on his collar and lead when we're out. They're from Accolade Leathercraft. I got the platted 3/4" flat lead and a 1" plain flat collar, both in brown leather. They've worn in really well and the colour is lovely. I'm not getting Grey a correction collar or harness and am aiming to try to train him not to pull rather than use equipment that would restrict his movement.