Positively | Victoria Stilwell | Forum

I think 'set them up for success, not failure' is a good one, though may require examples. It's a guideline I often bear in mind when considering how to approach a training objective.

Another interesting passage - not sure I agree with it 100%, but this was written in the early 1900's - "A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their...

You should be proud of what you've achieved! You can only do what you do, and I'm sure the improvement you've seen will carry over into other situations. Also, if he didn't properly bite the other dog, but just 'had words' with her, that's not so bad :D Other dogs were quite vociferous with Jasper w...

Has he had any other aggressive outbursts apart from the ones you mentioned? Do you know what preceded the bite to your sister? He's still very young and has been through a great deal of pain and stress - I'm sure he can sense your stress as well. In a way, his behaviour was predictable - he's disco...

Now a couple of times, he's gone to pounce and ive said ah-ah and hes stopped. Should i still go out even if he does this? I'd say if he's shown self-control and stopped when you reminded him, you should stay and give him a lot of praise :D I must try the warmer/colder thing! I've done it a few tim...

Judy is your son a photographer? That photo is quite remarkable :D Thank you :D He was very keen on photography for a while and took it very seriously, but he seems to have lost the muse, which is a shame. So not a 'proper' photographer but I agree, he's very talented (not that I'm biased of course...

Thanks, Nettle :D Jasper had a follow-up check-up today - the rash is much better, and the vet thinks it's caused by gorse, which makes sense as there's a lot around here. I really need to find a way of preventing this as I don't want him to need regular doses of steroids. Unfortunately ruling out t...

I love it when Jasper's tail thumps against the floor when he sleeps. I'd love to know what he's dreaming about

There's one dog locally who will go for Jasper whenever he sees him, though he's fine with other dogs. Jasper's far too much of a wimp to retaliate. The only reason I can think of is that they first met when Jasper was around 8 months, and at the peak of his testosterone levels, and the other dog wa...

Fingers and toes crossed for a good result. You could always come & clean my house... Jasper would have to be under for about a week before I ran out of things that needed cleaning

I've been vocal a couple of times recently with someone on my forum. She said this morning that her children have been taught never to take food from a dog unless it's food the dog shouldn't have, in which case they should shout 'NO!!' before removing the food :shock: Hmmmm, how to create an aggress...

It flared up quite badly today (before I got round to getting the lavender oil) so I popped him to the vet and he's now in a five-day course of Medrone V - which I assumed was an antihistamine but with a quick scour of the internet I'm not so sure. Back on Monday to check that it's heading in the ri...

In part due to its long beard and lip folds, the Spinone can have a tendency to slobber.

I was very tempted by Spinones until I read

One shake of that magnificent head and suddenly your ceiling has stalactites of slobber

Yup, me again :oops: Recently, Jasper has occasionally been stopping on walks and refusing to go in particular directions. I used to just drag him along but he would throw a tantrum and I'm not doing that any more. Often it's because he doesn't want to go to the woods. A couple of days ago I think t...

Actually, Jasper surprised me by doing something similar a while back. He's normally really friendly with everyone, but one morning I woke to find a note on the front room door to say that a couple of my son's friends had come home with him in the early hours and were sleeping in there. When they em...