Re: First Walk! Thanks Julie. We were really pleased that the Easter holidays would coincide with us being able to get her out and about and now I'm nervous about it! I'm sure we will survive We were planning to take her usual crate but I might see if I can get a travel version instead. I did read about making sure that you 'do nothing' some of the time on walks and I made sure I did this yesterday when I drove her to our off lead area, I just stood for a while and admired the view and then we sat on the bench and did the same. There were indeed no distractions though, so I can see that will need to be built up.
Re: First Walk! I think the "do nothing" is very important. My dog is pretty hopeless at doing nothing - I didn't do it when he was a pup. We're getting better now though..... My trainer says if I'm out for a hour, it should be 20 minutes bumble (free running), 20 minutes training, and 20 minutes doing nothing (not all at once, of course, in little bits).
Re: First Walk! Hi Zanacal! Just wanted to pop in and say hello and wish you luck! Your questions sound so similar to the ones I was asking only a few months ago. I can't top Julie's advice but just to say that I relate to what you're thinking about. I worried so much about the first few weeks and making sure I did everything by the book so that it would "go in" before that 16 week window closed... and now I realise that although that is massively important the training goes on far beyond that and inevitably has to! The window doesn't shut either! So, don't worry, you won't be able to do everything by the book and, even if you do, you'll hit adolescence or an usual situation and have to improvise, change tactics or start again! With the sniffing everything in sight situation, I ended up by giving Bonnie a bit more leeway when we're on an unusual route (where the smells are new and exciting!) but on our usual daily route being a little more firm about focusing on lead training and walking nicely. It's coming together really well and now when we go somewhere new I do a bit of letting her sniff and then I let her know we're going to focus on walking nicely again. She seems to totally get that. I was really keen to expose Bonnie to lots of new situations too. She's definitely well-socialised! I found my brother's house really difficult to manage - screaming, bouncing kids, dropped crisp packets, trailing Play Station cables.... oh boy. It was very difficult because Bonnie would get over-excited and the kids wouldn't really understand that squealing was making her more excited. The crocopup situation worsened too! I actually found that she wanted to go into her crate and have a bit of quiet time away from the chaos. Bless! Having the kids walk with us or do some fun training helped focus everyone on structured fun but it can't last all weekend/week, so inevitably there'll be imperfect situations at some point! If I could go back to those early weeks I'd tell myself not to panic about it so much. The other thing I noticed is that other people TOTALLY understood that she was just a puppy and that they'd have to expect some nibbled fingers. It was me that was worrying about it, they were totally fine about it. 8) Anyone who's invited a new pup into their home will know to expect a few hiccups. When we visited my mum and stepdad's for the first time we had a wee on their rug, tore up their favourite flower arrangement and vomited on their kitchen floor!!! :-[ .... We have been invited back every weekend since !!!
Re: First Walk! Ah, thank you, I really needed to hear that! I feel such a responsibility to 'get it right', but (as with my children!) I'm learning that it's not possible, we will make mistakes, and hopefully not end up with anything too terrible as a result! We had a great little lead walk up and down our lane last night. Our neighbour did walk past with his Goldie but I saw them coming so we stood in between two cars and I got her to sit and have some cheese, tried to attract her attention to me with a little playing/jingling ball. Yes she tried to lunge but no worse than the Goldie, who is old enough to know better, and I know I'm going to work on it! Tess was very calm when we got her - less so now, but hopefully with consistency it won't last forever!
Re: First Walk! It's funny I was just thinking, if I had children I'd know to expect good days and bad, days when we're well behaved, days when we're not; but for some reason with Bonnie I think I was anticipating an upward curve of improvement, especially if we "got it right" in that window. I now realise I had unrealistic expectations and that she's a little personality with moods, idiosyncrasies, fears and needs of her own... I love her for it. Especially on days like today when she's resting and letting me work (or come on the Labrador Site!!! : ) Good luck with it all! And well done Tess for showing Goldie how it's done! 8)
Re: First Walk! Thanks Bonnie! We really have been very lucky with Tess, she's a lovely girl, pretty calm really! Back to the initial advice, we are enjoying our little saunters up and down our lane. There is hardly any sniffing because Tess knows where we are and I vary my speed, change direction a lot etc. Our visit to my sister's wasn't too great. They have a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who barked and encouraged Tess to play the whole time, then when Tess did play everybody went 'aww, poor Toby - and picked him up!'. He is also allowed on the sofas so Tess was jumping up to get to him - and people don't seem to be able to understand not to stroke and fuss over her when I'm trying to 'bring her back' to me!
Re: First Walk! People don't understand that you are trying to train your dog - they have funny ideas, and just do not think about what they do around your dog. It just doesn't occur to them to think about it. I've decided that is the way of the world, and view other people doing inconvenient things as something I've got to train my dog to ignore. Over the 2 years I've had Charlie, I think the most bizarre thing I encounter is people who actively try to get my dog to ignore what I've just told him to do. The woman in the vet - after I had explained I was trying to get my dog to sit still and stop whining - who slapped her thighs and said "here, boy, come say hello". She was extremely put out and disgruntled when I stopped him getting to her by using my lead. She was rude to me. Endless people on the street who say "hello there", and reach out to my dog when I'm trying to get him to walk to heel. A few have been rude, and practically all of them mutter something like "well, really" under their breath when I say "no, no, we won't say hello, thank you". The neighbour, after I had told Charlie "look at me" as a group of dogs passed by, who said "Oh, come play with me instead", and embraced my dog. She thought she was helping. And so on. It's just the way people are, they just sort of think it doesn't matter and they can do what they want, and your dog is a play thing. But you can't change them, you've just got to develop your techniques for minimising their impact. The good news is that so long as you put enough effort into training your dog, you can make them not matter too much. So it's not worth worrying about, really.
Re: First Walk! I was considering getting my two the "in training" harnesses/collars/leads to keep people away, but I really don't think it will work with the majority of people. I'm lucky that most of the people who know me now ask if I'm training when I'm on the street with one of the dogs and so know whether they can say hi to the pup or not. That really helps the training effort! The rest of them that call my dog to them while I'm asking for a behaviour just drives me to distraction.
Re: First Walk! Ah-ha, timely post Julie about vets and training!!! I was just about to post in another place that my 2nd about turn training today ended up with me having my first ever row with another dog owner.... I'm still sort of smarting about it So, we're proofing our recall using about turn which mean I have to turn away from Bonnie. Usually I would see an oncoming distraction but of course, facing the wrong way today, I didn't! An older man and a young woman arrived on the field with two small dogs (don't know how old as our shouting match was at a distance!!) .... I recalled Bonnie and true to form she came on the 3rd call. The man shouted she should be on a lead, so I shouted she's a puppy in training, he said she should still be on a lead and I shouted how am I supposed to train her to come when she's on a lead. The young woman said, I'm a trainee vet I understand training but you should have put her straight on the lead. Rather than go into details about what I was doing (we were still at a distance, Bonnie now at my heels), I just shouted, you need to think about a career change then : ??? :-[ Okay, I'm probably not 100% in the right here but grrrrrrr. It is a dog field!!! The thing is they both picked their dogs up and held them in their arms, so what is that teaching them about other dogs? Anyway, sorry Zanacal, that your weekend didn't go absolutely according to plan but I've often thought that there's a plus with every minus.... your pup got some socialisation, learnt to find your voice in a crowd of other voices, and I guess you got to learn exactly what Julie and Snowbunny are saying!
Re: First Walk! Oh and I've had people call at Bonnie from across the other side of the road, when there are cars passing! :
Re: First Walk! Do you know what, I think I sometimes say hello to dogs as they pass - I always go on to wonder when on earth I started saying hello to dogs in the street and that I must be crazy, but I hadn't considered that the owners might not want me to! I'll remember in future for sure Last night our neighbour walked almost past us with her dog but I didn't even see her until afterwards because I was so busy looking at Tess and telling her she was a good girl as we walked up and down Sorry about the exchange at the dog field - if people only ever let their dogs off their lead once they knew how to come back first time, every time, I should think there'd be very few not on leads! When we had our German Shepherds other dog owners ruined about 80% of our walks because they only had to go to play with another dog and somebody would shout that they were viscious and should be on leads. I don't think our dear old boy Samson ever growled during his entire life, he had the most amazing temperament. I was hoping there might be less of this with a Labrador but I guess not all dog owners are dog lovers - they just love their own! When you know your dog is going to get big you make sure you train it because you know you can't just scoop it up This weekend we are actually staying over with family. I think I'll have to do my best under the circumstances and try to enjoy it regardless!
Re: First Walk! I think it's probably fine to say hello to well trained dogs where the owner is happy to. I often do when I'm alone and even when we're together training I'll sometimes let Bonnie say hello to another dog if the owner looks like s/he might welcome a structured introduction! There seems to be a bunch of us round our way who all got pups at Christmas and the pups know one another and always want to say hello so we often do a polite hello! I've been chatting to lots of the owners and we always help each other out with things like "down" and polite hellos! The other day one owner even suggested we walked our dogs together so they could get used to that idea. I think that's lovely So, I suppose I just wasn't prepared for the events of today and I probably shouldn't have retaliated. ??? We were clearly training though. I was walking in about turns in a big open space - obviously not just for the fun of it!!! And that's exactly what I thought about their little, easy-to-scoop up dogs!!! It wasn't as if I didn't try to recall her either and she was pretty quick to come back. Anyway, I'm being defensive which is probably because I know we've got a long way to go. Puppy classes after Easter - hurrah! I completely empathise with your up-coming weekend. I am struggling to relax when I go to other people's houses or when I have guests. I am very focused on the pup which makes me less attentive to my human company!! I'm not sure what to say except that we probably should allow ourselves to relax a bit and ultimately the pups will be more relaxed. Well done Tess for walking up and down so nicely!!! 8)
Re: First Walk! I feel like I have a constant stream of questions ... we are doing pretty well (I think!) taking it slowly. A couple of times a day we practice a heel up and down our lane with the limited slip lead then some days (not all) I drive her to an area near our home (the one I walked her to on the first day - but I drive to the other end to make the drive worth while and to avoid the smelly alley!). For these outings she wears her harness but I usually carry her out of the boot of the car straight in to the field. When we're there she's obviously very interested in just roaming and sniffing so all I do is walk away from her a lot and whenever she runs to catch up I give a recall signal and reward when she gets to me (though she's so busy sniffing she's not that interested in the food rewards). Is that all I should be doing off lead for now? We practice an off lead heel in the garden. We are yet to see anybody else with or without a dog but I'm on the lookout and I will put her on her lead if we do. My other question is whether I should be taking her to different areas off lead or whether we should get familiar with one area first? For example, we had planned to take her to the beach next week - should we hold fire on that, is it more important to introduce her to the big wide world in a more controlled way or for her to experience sand/sea etc. during the first 14 weeks or so? I know I really do need to get her up to town tomorrow morning when it's at its busiest. It is never really busy but we haven't done walking through a busy area at all (we carried her up before her injections but it wasn't particularly busy because we were there too late in the day!). In all honesty I'm dreading this! I'll put her on her harness and I thought when we got there we would have a little sit on a fairly central bench (or maybe we'll sit a little out of the way so we don't get too many well meaning visitors wanting a stroke!). I would like to go and sit outside a cafe but I wouldn't be able to take her inside to buy the coffee and I don't want to tie her up outside yet! Anyhow, experience tells me she won't sit particularly still - I hope it's not too messy
Re: First Walk! I think it's fine to allow a puppy to roam about, exploring in different areas, when you are not trying to train. I can't see the harm in that, and I'd go to the beach with her for sure. Why not? Reward any attention at all that you do get, and if you can get a couple of steps of off lead heel so much the better. Have you massively upped the value of your treats when in a new area? That's always a good tactic. But just don't try getting her to walk properly on her lead, as that's probably not going to happen... Apart from that, I'd try to get a settle in new areas (or a do nothing if that's all you can get, more realistic at this stage anyway) and I'd be playing with her off lead. Strangers stroking your puppy is a good thing. Particularly if she sits while they approach, and you have her on a harness, with a firm grip, to stop her jumping up etc... Yes, an assistant to buy the coffee in cafes is a big help! ;D ;D ;D
Re: First Walk! If she's not been in a busy area yet, absolutely do take her. If she's not met a diverse range of people yet, let her. They'll want to come and say hi and stroke her, because she's cute, so let them. He socialisation window hasn't closed yet and it's important she gets to meet all sorts of people. Mine didn't meet many young (4-6ish years old) children when they were very young, just because there were none around, and it shows now. They can often bark at them and get a bit upset. Yesterday, I did a bit of training with them where they were barking at the child of someone I know (not very well). It turned out he was scared of dogs, too - marvellous. So, with the mother's consent, I took the dogs one at a time up to the child, rewarding them for calm behaviour, and after only a couple of minutes, both dogs and child were happy in each others' company. But they will remain unsure of young children for a good while, I think. So, please, let your little girl meet anyone and everyone now! In the same vein, let her experience different places, sights, sounds and textures. Let her meet and play with other dogs off-lead. This time is invaluable for learning how to behave and trying to protect her too much could cause issues later on. The scariest thing I had with Willow when she was about 14 weeks old was two Vizslas running towards her at full pelt. I didn't know these dogs, but it was an intimidating sight, and I worried about some sort of pack mentality. As it was, they were a puppy of 8 months and a 13-year old. They sniffed at her (she was very submissive and ran away, but they weren't showing any signs of aggression, so I let them get on with it) and they ran off after only a minute or so. A good lesson for her. She also met grouchy older dogs who growled at her and "superior" dogs who wanted nothing to do with her. She is now, at 8 months, very confident around all sorts of other dogs but, to be perfectly honest, not that bothered with them.
Re: First Walk! We did go all out for socialisation when we first got her (the school run/friends' dogs/other people's houses etc.) but now I'm trying to get the balance right - because she's extremely sociable, if we see somebody while out she goes crazy wagging her tail, lunging towards them etc. She's very bold and nothing phases her - when she's off lead she's happy for me to stray quite a long way from her before she catches me up! I'm happy for people to say hello but I want her to learn that not everybody will say hello - it won't be fun if she's still lunging at people to say hello in a few months when she's much bigger! I have 4 children aged between 2 and 9 of my own and I am a childminder so she's had a huge exposure to children and not just our own She certainly isn't bothered by loud and sudden noises ;-) She's met plenty of adults too and we carried her around as much as we could before she had injections, down to the busy road and so on. We just haven't timed it right for it to be particularly busy in town and not taken her at all since she had her last injections last week. I'll let you know how I get on
