What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

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JudyN
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

Finally, Jasper has just about sussed out bringing me my slipper-socks on command when we get home from walks. He quite often did it without being asked, thanks to us always rewarding him for bringing us pretty much anything as he used to guard socks when he was a pup, so I just needed to put it on cue. I say just... it took a long time, a lot of wild gesticulation from me, and a lot of him staring at me blankly :lol: Which I know isn't the prescribed way of training anything but it works for us... eventually :wink:

He does sometimes try to snatch them off me again so he can give them back again and get another treat :roll:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Fundog »

I ordered a special ramp for Annie, to help her going up and down the porch steps, and it came today. The first thing I did was lay it on the living room floor and lure her onto it with bits of summer sausage. Awesome. "What's so hard about that?" Annie says. Then I put it outside on the porch steps, telescoped it out to its full length (so it would be more stable), and lured her onto it from the ground end. That went really well, she made it half way up, then decided the top half was too scary and jumped off. Next I started from the porch end and tried to lure her onto the top half of the ramp. She would not actually stand on it, but she did put her front paws on to get the treat. I ended the session on that note, feeling that we made a great progress for her very first time seeing, smelling, or touching the ramp. :)
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Erica
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Erica »

Sounds like Delta with the agility catwalk and A-frame. Your plan sounds like what we did too and it worked well! If you haven't already, I found that with Delta, back end awareness exercises made him more comfortable with strange surfaces. Some may not be suitable for Annie in her age, but if you find the ramp training stalling it might be worth adding :) Good luck!
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
JudyN
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

Erica, what rear end awareness exercises are the easiest? Jasper's rear end awareness is hopeless!

So, we met three dogs today - a young lab cross that probably had some whippet in, a young red setter, and a 7-year-old red setter. When we first met he had a brief mad dash with the two young 'uns before focusing more on (scrounging off :wink: ) the humans. When he got bored with that, who did he decide he wanted to play with? The 7-year-old, Merlin. He playbowed, barked and jinked but Merlin wasn't interested. Meanwhile the young 'uns were still playing together but oh no, that wasn't interesting at all. I'm wondering if it's because he knew Merlin when he was a puppy, so he brings out the puppy in Jasper.

We also often walk with a lively young crossbreed who runs around a lot - generally Jasper can't be bothered running/playing with her. On Monday the owner also brought her 12-year-old grumpy dog as well. At his very first grumble when Jasper was too close, Jasper was like 'Whay-hay-hay,' wanting to run around in big circles, come in just close enough to get grumpy dog to snark and chase him, and go off in another big circle.... so we had to keep one or t'other on lead for most of the walk (even though grumpy dog's owner didn't see a problem with this 'game' :? ).

Talk about contrary :roll:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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Nettle
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Nettle »

Hmmmm - that's two old dogs targeted :? This is what I mean when I say 'play' isn't necessarily benign (in fact it rarely is, especially with unknown dogs). It's a bit like the youth-in-a-hoody coming up and shoving the OAP - "Awright Gran'dad?" - to see if he staggers.

Jas is behaving like a normal dog, but you were very wise to monitor what was happening, and put an end to it before something unfortunate kicked off.
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JudyN
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

Nettle wrote:Jas is behaving like a normal dog
That makes a nice change :lol:

I don't think it's age per se, or even weakness - he's fine with calm old dogs. He was very different with the two dogs - he was clearly goading Grumpy Dog, whereas with Merlin he was inviting play - fairly politely if you ignore the paw on the back :roll: - and gave up when it was clear Merlin wasn't interested. But that was quite an unusual interaction for him. His idea of heaven is a whole pack of angry terriers snapping at his heels.

Actually, it probably suits his stamina better to pick on older slower dogs who don't really want to chase (or aren't able to) - he can take a break whenever he wants before coming back for another round. If he does play chase with another lurcher he's exhausted way before the other dog's had enough :lol: Maybe that's why he picks on the ones who don't want to play......

But I quite agree with you, the behaviour has 'bully' written all over it and I'm amazed that other people can't see that in him and think it's OK.
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Erica »

I like this video for ideas. Pivoting around the front feet is usually where I start, since you can really help lure the behavior if you need to. Start with teaching a front-foot target to a book or something similar, then you can stand with the dog on your left. When you move the treats to your right side, the dog will probably pivot to get a better angle on them. Not sure how helpful this will be with long-necked lurchers, though...:lol: But that's how I start (and then repeat going the other way).

Stepping up a "staircase" of different objects (low wooden box, footstool, table) was also good for Delta. Stepping between the rungs of a ladder, then a raised ladder, is also great.

I want to do back foot to hand targeting, or hip to hand targeting, but I'm not having luck figuring out how to start them.
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
JudyN
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

I've done front-foot targetting but he always stepped off to try to get the treat rather than move his back end! I'll have to try some different approaches - thanks :D
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
Erica
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Erica »

Delta was being completely ridiculous last night, behaving dangerously energetic and trying to do whatever he could to burn off his energy. His ideas were not safe. So today I said "whatever" and took him on a walk. He's being nice and calm again today. :)

I feel like a calm walk is more in line with "crate rest" than tasmanian-devil-whirlwinds and leaping over imaginary objects.
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
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Nettle
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Nettle »

I subscribe to that too. My dogs can do more damage to themselves leaping around in the home than walking calmly on a lead.
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katej215
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by katej215 »

JudyN wrote:Erica, what rear end awareness exercises are the easiest? Jasper's rear end awareness is hopeless!
Judy, have you got any old broom handles and the like lying around :D ??? Check out t touch ground work, building a laberynth is a good one...I'm sure there is some vids on you tube..sorry havent got time to look right now !
JudyN
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

Kate, I need to dismantle the agility jumps OH cobbled together when Jasper was a pup and we had plans to do agility. But our attempts seemed to fry his brain for some reason.... Even now, when we have a go with the agility equipment in the woods he can manage a couple of goes through the tunnel and a couple of jumps before he thinks about jumping up and getting silly :? There must be something about my sense of expectation that he picks up on.

Anyhoo, when I did get him to go over low jumps, he'd have no problems with his front end but his back legs just clattered through. So yes, there's lots we can work on there :lol:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by JudyN »

I'm so proud of Jasper right now :D We went for a walk with my friend, Lola and Grumpy Jim. Last week Jasper thought goading Grumpy Jim was great fun, but this time he just ignored him and moved out of his way when he growled.

It wasn't all positive though - a few times when Jasper got too close (often when treats were involved) GJ got very snarky, and would probably have nipped if he wasn't muzzled, and Jasper was a bit upset by this. He did try to keep his distance after that, but if he decided to run with Lola GJ of course needed to step in and 'protect' 'his' dog. He came back to me for reassurance and/or a treat each time he got snarked at so hopefully that helped him feel better.

I'm hoping that by managing treats and putting one or the other on lead when necessary we can get GJ to be more comfortable round Jasper and Jasper to be able to relax round GJ, otherwise I have the difficult task of explaining to my friend that I don't want to walk with GJ any more because it's not good for either of them. GJ was better towards the end of the walk when he was tired and couldn't be bothered grumping any more, so there is hope.

But still - because it deserves saying again - Jasper was an absolute star. I feel sorry for GJ though.
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by Nettle »

Sad, isn't it? Poor GJ.

But well done Jas, and you are so good to be managing matters for everyone's benefit.
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MPbandmom
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Re: What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

Post by MPbandmom »

Last week we had several dreary drizzly,foggy days in a row. Those of you who live where this weather is common are probably laughing now, but that's okay.

Some days we got the dogs out for a walk, and others we had errands to run that I wanted to get done as early as possible, so no walk before errand running.

Saturday was another rainy sort of way with clearing promised in the evening. Due to the playoff football games, OH had declared he would not be taking walks this weekend. I had cleaning at my parents, so decided to take the dogs with me as they hadn't visited my parents in a while and it would give them a change of scenery. I loaded the dogs up in the big van......and it didn't want to start. :( This is not totally uncommon for it after it has been parked for a while, and it was trying to start, just not quite managing to do so. I persevered and finally it fired up. :D

Off we went. All was good until the speed limit went from 25 to 45 and the van didn't want to go 45, it got to 40 and then lunged and lurched and refused to go any faster. :( I did a quick turn around and headed back home to deposit the big van and try another vehicle. I debated and decided to go with the T-bird; which, other than a slight right side brake grabbing issue, has been behaving very well recently. I put the dogs' car seatbelt harnesses on them and buckled them in in the back seat. Typically Sky thinks she has to ride in the front passenger seat and tends to whine about the injustice of it all the entire trip. Sirius likes to stand and stare out of the windshield searching for things to bark at. (This is why they usually ride in crates in the big van where they can't see things.)

I was very impressed. :D Sky did whine a little but seemed to want the window down a bit for air and then a little more air. :lol: Sirius was almost a perfect angel. We went through a construction zone and she did have a bit of a grumble at the flagman, but I stopped a ways back and we sat for a while as other traffic was given the go ahead, and she settled down very quickly. On the way home, she gave a little grumble at a pedestrian as we were pulling out of the driveway, but was settled on the seat and quiet the rest of the way home, even when we passed others out walking. :D

Sunday, I took both dogs together to the quiet park across town. (in the big van as speeds are lower for the entire route.) I had a somewhat goal of getting 5 miles in, but came up with this plan late enough in the day that I knew we would be cutting it close on having sufficient daylight. The sun came out and it was a very lovely early afternoon, then the wind picked up. So at just over 3 miles I decided to call it quits. Because it was the first nice afternoon in days, there were quite a few other dogs there. (Okay maybe 6, a couple of goldens, a couple of GSDs, and a couple small dogs, none of which seemed to be together, so for us that was quite a bit of dog dodging.) :lol: Both dogs behaved great! It gives me hope for getting out there earlier one day and knocking that 5 miles out two dogs at the same time. :D
Grammy to Sky and Sirius, who came to live with me, stole my heart, and changed my life forever as I took over their care and learned how to be a dog owner.
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