krissy

Totally agree. This may help the dog to learn to yield to pressure and to trust you further, but I wouldn't suggest that this be done to gain a new dog's trust. I taught Summit to sit by luring and shaping. It was difficult in the beginning but patience paid off and he learned to do it all on his own... for food. I use LOTS of treats, especially when teaching new tricks. For things he already knows he doesn't get a treat every time, and he has learned by extension that praise and affection is a reward, but he never would have valued these prior to starting to train. I taught him many things before I started to teach him to yield to pressure. I taught him to settle and then started teaching him to roll flat onto his side by making him yield to pressure. It required trust and built trust to do it, and it would have been frustrating to attempt anything like it without some sort of relationship already in place.

Well, I know there will be at least one other GH in Flower's class. I've talked a friend into doing it with me! There was no such clause in my contract....but, I'm hoping that it'll be fun...for me and my pups! I'll report back and let you know! No sighthounds in Summit's class either. My trainer does have one lady that fosters and brings her fosters for classes sometimes though. We start agility in April, so we'll see if we have any sighthounds. I have no expectations to see a greyhound, but maybe a whippet.

What kind of class? Obedience?

I suppose it is possible. He was really resisting being crated for about 2 weeks prior to us graduating him to the bedroom and was not using the crate. Having said that though, the day before I took the crate down I did find him napping in it, but I suspect that was because his bed was in the living room (we only had one at the time, so I would move it at bedtime into the bedroom) and he wanted to lay on the nice soft blankets in the crate. We've had him for 5 months but he was a bounce that came from a previous home of 2 years where he did not have a crate (I think they crated for the first little while that he was home, but he no longer had one after that) so I find it hard to believe that he's that attached to his crate... but it's possible. Interestingly he has been fine this morning as well. Was laying on his bed here in the living room and then got up and looked to be invited onto the couch and came up right away and is now sleeping on the couch. Go figure. Maybe I was letting him be a little too much and he figured he wasn't getting any attention in the living room and therefore deduced that he wasn't welcome? Go figure. We will see what he does tonight as that is when he has been retreating to the bedroom the most.

I really don't think so. That was what I orginally thought and why I didn't worry about it, but he literally looks like he's uncomfortable. Also, he won't even get on the couch. He LOVES the couch. Yes, he's discovered the bed now and he spends most of his time when we are not home on the bed, but the couch is still pretty highly prized. Since we moved the bed, and gave him extra attention and treats he has finally settled and seems comfortable again. I also removed the offending dead leaf from the plant. I will just continue to encourage him to stay out here with attention and treats I guess. Who knows what the deal is. Good to hear it happens to others too though.

He was spooked tonight by some dead leaves on one of the plants in the LR, the one right behind his bed. It was dry and crackly, and he touched it with his tail. But he has never looked at the plant prior to tonight with a "what on earth" look, and this living room issue has been going on for a couple of weeks. As far as I know nothing in the living room has changed. He has been on his bed in the LR now for about half an hour, and is flat on his side now fast asleep. I will be sure to give him extra attention and treats in the living room from now on, but wish he could speak so I could ask him what is going on....

Yes. Bedrooms are carpet and living room is hardwood. We know that all the animals dislike the flooring from the kitchen to the bathroom for some reason. It is the same as in the living room but for some reason they don't mind the living room. The rabbits display it most obviously. They seem to have trouble with the footing, slip, their legs splay, they scrabble, and get out of there as quickly as possible. Summit will go into the kitchen (his food and water are in there) and he will follow all the way to the bathroom if we really call and encourage him, but has never gone down there on his own. We called him back out to his bed in it's new spot in the living room and gave him lots of attention and treats, and he is now laying down... oh wait, nope, just got up and is wondering if he should leave or not. He decided to lay back down here with us, but he's just not looking completely relaxed and happy.

Summit has developed a somewhat sudden aversion to the living room. I have noticed over the last week or two that he does not want to lie on his bed in the living room, and even had to be coaxed to join me on the couch. He also never gets up on the couch by himself when we aren't occupying it (if we were cooking dinner or something he used to be lying on his bed or up on the couch). He spends all of his time in the bedroom now even though in the evenings we are always in the living room. Some recent changes: - Summit graduated from his crate to being babygated in the bedroom, and is allowed on the bed while we are gone. - He got a new Costco "orthopedic" bed which is in the bedroom where his crate used to be I thought that because he had a new, more comfortable bed in the bedroom he was choosing to spend time in there on that one. But tonight I gave him a special dinner (every now and then he gets a raw turkey neck for dinner instead of kibble) and I always give it to him on his living room bed (covered with a towel). Well, he lay down and took it and then tried to get up and leave with it, so I made him lie back down... and then he refused to eat it and just looked sort of uncertain/uncomfortable. I thought the neck was just too frozen so I defrosted it a bit for him and tried again. He REALLY wanted that neck, but it was on his bed and he looked torn between leaving and eating it. He tried to run away with it again. I took it from him and put it back on his bed. He finally stands on the bed and starts eating it and eventually lies down. But as soon as it is finished he gets off his bed and runs away. So I take the living room bed and swap it for his orthopedic one from the bedroom because I still think it's an issue of a better bed. But when I go to call him, I realize he's in the bedroom ON HIS BED (the one I moved from the living room). I call him to the living room and show him that his comfy bed is out there. He retreats back to the bedroom. So now I wonder if there's something about the corner his bed is in that he doesn't like? It's right next to the room where the rabbits live and he is afraid of them, so I thought maybe he was upset about that. The bed has been in that spot for the last 5 months that we've had him and the rabbits making noise has never bothered him. So I move the ottoman over and put the bed on the other side of it. I call him from the bedroom (where he is on his bed once again - still his living room bed) and show him the new placement of his orthopedic bed. He seems happier at first, and lays down on it, but doesn't relax and after a minute or two he gets up and wants to leave. I call him back and invite him up onto the couch but can't convince him to get up with me. He leaves and is now once again back in the bedroom on his livingroom bed. So it's not an issue of one bed being nicer than the other. It is not an issue of the placement in the living room of his bed. And I don't think it has anything to do with his missing crate because he hadn't used it in a week or more and before that had been resisting being crated for about 2 weeks. Nothing else has changed. Nothing else has changed about him... he is still his usual self, no medical issues. What the heck is going on?

Summit is starting agility the first week of April! So excited! Just thought I'd share. I have nothing constructive to add. lol

I'm a student, but I'm in vet school so my hours are basically like a full time job (8:30-5:30 many days). When our first foster came up we got him Saturday night (got home with him at midnight). Sunday he came to an ultimate frisbee tournament with me and did some alone training (got up to a max of about 30 minutes). Monday I had school, BF had work, so he was alone for half a day (8:30-12:30) and then came to school with me for an hour after lunch. Next day was basically a full day. He barked and had some anxiety over the first week, but then settled right in. We picked up Summit on a Wednesday night. I had a couple of slightly shorter days Thursday and Friday, and then the weekend. He'd been in a home before for 2 years though so he was pretty relaxed with home life.

How so? Meat (from skeletal muscle) is largely protein. How can adding more protein not be adding protein? If you feed a dog 100% of his daily caloric requirement as raw beef, you've just fed the dog five times its protein requirement. A wild dog's diet absolutely contains plant matter. Wild dogs prey on herbivores. When a wolf pack takes an animal down, they go straight for the rumen. What's in the rumen of an herbivore? Fermenting plant matter. Dogs aren't true carnivores, and contrary to popular belief, they do require carbs on top of fat and protein. Yes, carbs (and other sugars) are hydrophilic molecules and require increased water intake. But fresh water should be available at all times, anyway. Plus, we're talking about a pet dog, here. Not a high-performance working animal. I'm certainly not advocating they be fed immediately before or after exercise. I hope that goes without saying. What are the risks you're referring to? We do it in horses all the time. Feed an increased amount of concentrate when exercising, and cut the feed on the days when they don't. I feed Summit extra the evening after a run. It's not a good idea to feed an hour after or 2 hours prior to exercise, but there's no contraindication to feeding a little bit more several hours after. If you're comfortable to feed a meal, there's no reason not to feed a slightly bigger meal. I'll give Summit an extra half cup or so in the evening (runs are from 2-3 for the group we run with, so we're talking about feeding him about 4-6 hours later). In terms of increasing the amount of kibble, what IS a possible risk factor for bloat is to feed large meals. So if the dog is getting a large bulk of kibble I would break it up into 3 meals instead of two, or move to a higher quality kibble that you can feed less of. Also... being followed around looking for food does not necessarily mean your dog is actually hungry. We call Summit the "food mongrel" in this household. He gets 3 cups of kibble, MANY treats (because I'm always training him) about half a cup of kibble in his Kong while we're away, and more kibble and treats in a treat ball while we are gone (must keep the hound entertained!).

We were warned about this when we picked up Summit because I mentioned we would be giving him a bath pretty soon since he smelled like the kennel. On another note, I have been known to faint in the shower on numerous occassions. The combination of the warm water and the steam (lack of oxygen) makes me pass out. I keep the water from getting too hot, and I often leave the shower curtain open half way to provide oxygen. Summit doesn't have this problem. We took him to a carwash place that also has a "dog wash", and the water was almost hot. I was a little worried, but he had no problems. Probably helped that it was almost November so the air was cold.

I've got a video on my blog showing Summit learning to settle. It's not perfected yet, but the video shows the lure technique. Depending on how Zuri settles on his own, it may work for him too.

My Summit is the opposite. We have 3 pet rabbits at home and he's afraid of them. The one rabbit tries to get him to play and he runs away to his safe place. Which is fine by me.

I love seeing the lightbulb go on. So much fun. I'm teaching Summit to down with his bum under him as opposed to his normal sphinx. It's not much good to take him to someone's house and ask him to lie down on a bed or blanket and have him sphinx! So he's learning a settle command. And from that I'm also teaching him to roll flat onto his side.

We had our last class on Wednesday. I suggest signing up for another class. We're starting Level 1 agility in April so we're looking forward to that, and in the mean time I have a couple of things I wanted to teach Summit. Though he's almost got those now so I gotta think up a few more!

I am done working on his play retrieve. Two reasons... one it's good and reliable in the current situation, and two I don't have enough space to go any farther at this point. The weather Gods can't make up their minds here and it's been snow, thaw, rain, freeze, snow, rain, freeze... etc. The backyard is a disaster of ice and snow. The only space we have in our apartment is really the one bedroom where all the videos I do are taken. It's the only room that is carpeted so it's the only place he will really offer behaviours. It's not really big enough for long distance retrieving. I did however, find a toy at obedience class this week and after class while others were talking I was retrieving with Summit. He really surprised me with how much he enjoyed it and had no problem making the leap from the 3 foot retrieve in the bedroom to the 20 ft in the class. We had just finished doing the agility segment in class and I'd been working on the tunnel a bit because he had trouble with it at first but now is great. On one retrieve he was like, "Okay, Mom, I've got the toy. I have to bring it back to you now. Tunnel? The answer is tunnel isn't it?" and ran through the tunnel with the toy on his way back to me. Too funny. I wish I had THAT on video. I have not made any attempt at a formal obedience retrieve yet. I'm not sure I will ever be interested in competitive obedience, so it seems pointless at this time to try that. He does get a little hyped up about the toys when they come out now, and he will sometimes throw them to himself or shake them before bringing them back, but other times he's really quite disciplined and comes back to me and holds it quite patiently waiting for it to be taken. He can get really enthusiastic sometimes. I'm letting him because I like to see him so excited to train and work hard and training is so new to him still that even though it's work I also want to make sure it's not TOO much like work for him yet. Sometimes on his finish he jumps up as he's coming past my right side. He's just so excited. If we ever want to go for obedience we'd have to work on that because I don't think the judges would mark that favourably, but for now I don't really mind. I wish I could meet Jen. I love her blog and I'm just in awe of her dogs. They're incredible. And I know she's got a couple of years up on me and the advantage of her own house and her own agility set up, but still, I can't even imagine getting that far. My goal for now is to get Summit over/through all the obstacles this spring at our Level 1 agility. I would like to take Level 2 after that in the summer but due to school stuff not sure that will be possible. If we can enter a couple of trials next summer I will be thrilled.

Love my clicker. So does Summit. He's got lots of videos showing his shaping exercises, and the list of things he can do is growing exponentially. I'm starting to lose track and starting to have to really think about commands for new tricks.

For a large breed 8 week old puppy that seems a little odd. I had a 7 week old foster puppy a couple summers back (had him for 3 weeks until he was 10 weeks old) and he didn't have any problems with house training. He would crate for half days (I came home at lunch to walk and feed him) and after the first week I realized that he could hold it through the night. He was a ShepherdX (so a large breed). Depending on her injuries, she could possibly be slightly incontinent?

Omg! What an adorable little girl! Congrats, and good for you to open your heart and home to a puppy with medical challenges! In terms of the nipping, what really worked for me with my foster puppy was to yelp, like another puppy. I would offer him a small treat and when he grabbed it and 4 of my fingers in his little needle teeth I would make a surprised, sharp "yelp" just like another puppy or dog would do, and pull my hand (and the treat) away. Then I would offer it again and repeat. After a couple of attempts he would become more and more gentle, and I would decrease the sharpness and intensity of my yelp accordingly until I finally felt no little teeth, would release the treat and praise him highly. This lesson usually had to be repeated every day as he would forget, but after a couple of weeks he was very gentle taking treats. When playing with him with a toy, if he got me instead of the toy with his teeth I would yelp, remove the toy and turn my back on him for about 15 seconds. The idea is "you touch me with your teeth, I don't play with you". Of course since he was a puppy he had a pretty short attention span so 15 to 30 seconds of being ignored was sufficient as a lesson, and then I would turn around and play with him again until I felt teeth. You don't want to ignore the puppy for too long, because then instead of a lesson it becomes a punishment. Good luck with the puppy phase! It's difficult but also wonderful.

Our class yesterday was amazing. Summit brought his A-game. Actually, he brought his A-game all week. I really think all those trips to the vet really sucked it out of him. He was by far the best dog in his class. I didn't even use a leash for the majority of it. He loves other dogs and people but there were no distractions last night even being off leash. He had a wonderful sit/stay (for which he was rewarded with a small container of left over shepherd's pie mixed with cottage cheese), we raised the height of his bar jump, and I had him in and out of a full sized tunnel all on his own just by throwing a treat in and racing to the other end to call him the rest of the way through. He was watching me all class just waiting for his next command. He was still looking for commands when we got home. He's done really well. I have to say he will do lots of repetitions. I'm always watching him to see if we need to take a break and leave the room for a bit and have a pee or something, but he was just on the ball last night. I agree though that unlike other breeds there's really no way to successfully correct the "I don't want to do that right now". With other breeds if they get the idea they don't have to sit when I say so, I make sure they understand that they DO because otherwise I will make them (gently, but firmly, of course). You can't really do that with a greyhound.

ha ha, well, there are some funny ideas there, we may try a few of them. For now I've got a new, big one to work on with him. I want him to learn to roll onto his side. I had him in for x-rays and he just hates being picked up and put on his side. Once he's there he's great, but he really doesn't like being positioned. So I want to teach him to do it on a command so that in future he can do it himself. It's going to be a long, slow clicker training exercise. Might take a couple of weeks to shape this finally, but that's alright, we like a challenge. In other news, we had our third obedience lesson yesterday and it was amazing! Summit is probably the best one in his class, and I'm not even saying that because I am biased. He is actually probably the most focused. I have him off leash for most of the class now because I find the leash gets in the way for exercises where he has to walk behind me to finish, and for teaching drops and waits where I need more distance from him (even though I use an 8 foot lead in class). He's so focused and doesn't run off to see other dogs or people. I also got him through a full length tunnel (last week was the first time we managed to get him through it and it was shortened as far as it would go) and even on his own a couple of times (i.e. not being held at one end with me sitting at the other encouraging). I just throw a treat into the tunnel now, tell him to go through, and run to the other end and call him the rest of the way. I also managed to up the height on the bar jump. And he didn't bat an eye at the A-frame that made it's first appearance (completely flat on the ground, but still). Such a good session yesterday. Was very proud of him.

I know Araley is a bit of a drama queen and diva, but I think even she can accept the new norm. It sucks that your parents have so many rules regarding the dogs. We took Summit to visit Jarrett's folks over Christmas and he essentially had free run of the house while we were home. Their original plan was no dog on the living room carpet (it's white) but that lasted about 2 minutes. And they're really not dog people... he's the first dog that has been in that house while they've owned it. Jarrett's grandfather built it, and I think he had a Doberman while the kids were super young, but as long as Jarrett has lived in that house there has never been a dog in it. So big step for them. But I digress. Is there somewhere that you can put their bed right now that is outside of your bedroom (I'm assuming you have two beds in your room right now, yours and theirs)? I would start with that. They're going to throw a fit the first couple of nights but I think you're just going to have to deal with it and ignore them. If you ignore them strictly for a couple of nights I would think they would get the picture and accept their new place. Or you can move their bed and put dog beds down on the floor for them and again ignore their crying and carrying on for a couple of nights. New puppies accept and resign themselves to sleeping in crates, I'm sure with the same discipline you can convince Princess Araley that the world is not going to end.

No help here. Summit chooses to sleep alone if there is a better bed. Last night I left his crate door open, but was still waiting for my BF to come to bed so the bedroom door was still open. Summit got up out of his crate and went to lay on the couch. BF came in and shut the door... locking Summit out. Didn't hear a peep out of him. He was still cuddled up on the couch this morning when I got up. I guess comfort trumps the pack. lol

My Summit is very small animal safe. He's actually afraid of my bunnies. My one bunny Caspian thinks he's a dog and walks right up to Summit and even jumps up on his side and back. Summit usually doesn't mind the rabbit being out if he can be up on the couch (where he is relatively safe from marauding bunny rabbits. Otherwise he goes and hangs out in his crate where he is safe. Obviously the bunnies only come out when I am around to supervise closely.