what we've been doing this month...

dogs enjoying spring. from stacey on Vimeo.
Just in case anyone was wondering what we've been doing this lovely month of May :)

Recently....

• I've almost got Molly to learn the "bow" command. She's really cute doing it and can go really low too, the only problem is that she sometimes gets confused with 'bow' and 'down' so it's not 100% as of yet.. we're working on it though :-)

• Jess has got a great deal better at playing and earlier on we me and her got to play fetch a whole 4 times before she walked a way bored. It's definitely a long winded process getting her to enjoy playing but when I see how happy Molly is when she's playing I always think Jess is missing out, so it's worth it!

• I'm off to New York soon and I've never been that far away from my girls before. We have a family friend dropping in through the week and then my dad finished work at 6pm so although they have company I always worry about them when I'm away.

• I've been trying to clicker train the girls in the car and on the lead after work lately and Molly is great in the car, Jess still some work but she's getting there.

• The girls chasing instinct has been hiked up a notch recently and I'm not sure it's something I like. They go mental if they think a squirell is in the garden and every walk they seem to focus on finding rabbits. The thing is, it's so natural to them being dogs I'm not sure whether I should train them out of it or hope they'll never catch and kill an animal, hmmm....

The tale of the Murderous Clippers

I've recently been doing a fair bit of research on how to clip our gorgeous dogs nails. In the past we find it impossible to trim Jess's, somehow she realises what it is and she's out the door in seconds, she starts to shake if you corner her and the whole things turns into an ordeal.

After a few attempts we gave up but after reading that nails that aren't trimmed regularly can lead to the dogs developing arthritis made me think I have to get this sorted.

Molly is much more easy going when it comes to her paws so I started with her. She was brilliant and willing and was happy for cuddles as a well done.

That was until the third nail... I overestimated and cut the quick!

She screamed in the highest pitch yelp I've ever heard come from her. She ran, which then meant blood was spotting everywhere and when I got a cloth I realised how much blood there was. Thankfully it stopped pretty soon and after many cuddles she was as fine and normal as ever.... but that didn't stop me from feeling like the worst dog owner all day.

Never again. Ever, ever! I'm biting the bullet and sending them to the dog groomers.

We've also had a breakthrough with the problem in the car which seems to be unbelievable! I hope it carries on because I was beyond proud after yesterdays walk.. I just hope they keep it up.

The dreaded vet visit

Today the girls had to brace their dreaded vet appointments. Jess is considerably worse than Molly at coping under such amount of stress and refused to go anywhere near the table, she's such a cutie!

The vet was really good about it and did it on the floor for her, first was the booster injection which was over in no time, second the kennel cough vaccination which was a liquid in a syringe that was inserted by squirting it up their nostrils - Molly hardly flinched at this but Jess reacted as if she was threw into a lake and about to drown.

Jess also had two of her nails trimmed, this for most dogs isn't a huge deal but with Jess it's her biggest fear of all. It took her months to let us hold or touch her paws in anyway, so trimming the nails are a big no-no!
She handled it as well as she could and I'm so proud of my little puffin!

We also got Molly weighed - through some comments on her getting a bit large around the mid section!
She has put on weight since last year - she's now slightly under 22kg! But the vet said she wasn't yet classed as obese but it would be an idea to keep an eye out on her build.

I'm absolutely dreading putting the girls in a kennels for a week! They've never been to one before (and I certainly will never put them in one again) and I'm absolutely dreading how they're going to cope.
I found a really nice one though, and because of where we adopted Jess I decided to splash almost my whole monthly wage on putting them in the 'luxury suite' which includes they're own personal indoor & outdoor area, at least 3 walks a day, a visit to the day creche & a human bed for them to get cosy on. This picture is the only thing that will get me to enjoy my holiday!

The dog trainer;;

So as we realised something needed to be done about the girls behaviour I did a lot of searching online for close by dog trainers that knew a thing or two about dogs and why they act up. The one that seemed reputable was a large company that train dogs up and down the country, unfortunately, it's £345 a go.
We realised it was our last ditch attempt and sorting everything (which is quite a scary thought) but it had to be done.
When the man came for a 3 hour session my dad inparticular was dubious, he thought it was a waste of a lot of money and nothing would change... thankfully, he seems to be very, very wrong :-)
I don't know what this man did to my dogs but it seems to be working pretty quickly!
The girls were terrified when he was around (although they liked him) but it shocked me to realise their self confidence is so low and thats the reasons for our problems.
He left on sunday, today is tuesday. Both girls now walk to heel and even better Molly's yelping has completely stopped! So far it's been worth every single penny.

It's safe to say that at the moment I'm on proud mum.

July 2010

Got lots planned for the girls training this month, I may try and tackle their jumping when people come into the house. Jess isn't really the problem with it as she's so light footed but Molly will throw her entire body weight right into your legs when you least expect it.

I really want to get Jess into playing too. We've started buying meat paste to put in their kongs and they both absolutely love them! I'm now just on the hunt to find a wubba.

Leash Training:

I decided to start walking the girls with a harness (because I was sick of wondering if the times they was being good was only because they was so tired through chocking themselves on the collars by pulling), up to now only Molly had been on it but I decided to give Jess ago and see what happens, turns out it was amazing! I really wish I tried it sooner because the second the harness was on not one pull! Not even when we first left the house - which is usually where the worst pull happens. I was wondering if it was a one off but we've now had a few walks with her on the harness and still no pulling. 

Molly on the other hand still pulls (not as much though). The worst thing is because she no longer is pulling on her neck she scream for no reason. I've started leaving the house with salami in my pocket and with that she has finally started to listen to me when I ask her to do things. It's definitely an on going thing with Molly and I can't expect the results I had with Jess, but I will aim for them! 

Jess' Playing:

She's having some improvements, since we bought her a kong she gets extremely excited whenever we go to fill it up and she has recently been seen picking up a pink plastic dog toy and bringing it me to throw to her. She also loves to wrestle Molly whilst holding a teddy.

The girls in June 2010

This month I decided to take a break in teaching them tricks and really try and sort out a way I can help them with their leash work - Up to now, the dogs walking on their leads has been pretty awful, Molly more than Jess. Jess had actually got pretty good at it last year when we went to dog school, but I think watching Molly get away with almost pulling our arm off has made her pull aswell. Both of them like to be in  front on their walks and I suspect that's also another reason she started pulling.
Anyway, the other week we took both dogs to Dunhum park in peak time, we knew it would be harder but they had been improving so thought we'd give it a go. When we stepped out of the car both dogs were pulling even worse than usual (I actually fell over with Jess), Molly then went mad at the sight of another dog so it's safe to say the start of our walk was horrendous.
Luckily we had the halti to stop Molly's pulling (who my mum was walking) but couldn't find Jess'.
The first half of the park consisted of me begging Jess, leaning back to make her more tired in the hope she'll walk nicer and shouting at her when I felt my arm really pulling.

Then it struck me, I remembered reading an article which said with some dogs if they do something which they like but is ruining it with bad behaviour make them give paw or some easy trick to make them earn it all. So, as soon as Jess pulled I stood still, made her sit and when she would I would carry on with our walk. The first few times I would have to wait there for a few minutes as she would refuse to listen to me, but after a few goes she would listen to me straight away and by the end of the walk there was no pulling!

I've been walking her like that since that day at Dunhum and I can now walk her round our block with two fingers and I don't have to ask her to sit at all!

Molly's a little harder, her pulling is bad but the worse habit she has is when she leaves the house she screams until she no longer has the energy too. It's been so bad she hasn't even been able to get out of the garden. So today I put her on her harness (to make sure she kept her breath) and had an aim to get her half way up the round with no pulling and no screaming. The dog has a will of stone! As soon as she screamed I dragged her back to the house and made her 'sit', simple as but Molly would make it into a war of the wills, her against me! It was so much I literally sat on the floor waiting for her to finally do ask I asked and eventually she did! By the end we did our task, no pulling and no screaming. But there is defintely lots of more work to do and many more days like today.

Hopefully in my July update, I will have two nice leash walking doggies!

28/05/2010

Recently found some amazing dog trainers on youtube, the girls have pretty much learned to do basic leg weaving and Molly has mastered jumping into my arms on command in less than 2 days. I can't believe how well it's working and they respond so quickly. Jess can't quite jump into my arms but whilst sitting she jumps into my lap on command and I have put around 8 books on the chair to make me higher, she's never been as good a jumper as Molly though so it was obvious beforehand that Molly would pick it up a lot quicker.


Today I took them both on a seperate walk (I'm considering doing clicker training with Molly on walks soon) I took Molly first as I couldn't take her out the other day because of a loose dog, but today she really made me proad. She didn't see another dog, but she did see a cat and I made her sit and stay till she calmed down from trying to lunge, it worked, but the biggest improvement was I saw an old friend who came up chatting within 2 foot from her and she didn't bark once - a huuuuge improvement from last year when she though everything and anyone from the outside was a threat from her. Her fur did come up a little but usually she goes mad within a few seconds of that and this time she stayed quiet. Jess was as usual lovely to walk, she saw 4 dogs (all smaller) and didn't do anything, so the whole walk was really enjoyable - except when she started lunging at the sight of a cat.


Molly also gave me a nose bleed (and not a little one either), she got really excited about going in the backgarden after a bird and since Jess was already out it seemed to make her go hyper even more, so not wanting her to scare the bird I walked her by the collar to the back of the garden knowing that would get rid of the running and yelping and it did but cos I was knelt down she jumped up to lick me but slightly caught a bone on my nose, blood just started gushing!


I'm now going to look back on youtube to see anymore tricks they can learn, most are silly ones just for us to learn for fun but I am working my way up to the big ones.