A busier walk this morning. The good and the disgusting...

Today we decided to go to a restaurant up the mountain at lunchtime. It's very popular in the summer, so knew we would be meeting lots of people and their dogs along the way. As many of you know, we don't get much chance for this kind of thing a lot of the time because, outside of the tourist seasons, where we live is very, very quiet and we rarely meet other people. This can cause issues with the dogs reacting to people we come across.

After about five minutes of walking, we saw a couple with two young children walking towards us. My two dogs are scared of children and will bark at them, so we stepped well to the side and waited for them to pass, while distracting the dogs, asking them to sit and giving them treats. Of course, things are never that easy and the family stopped just above us while the kids ran around, so we decided to walk on by. I used the treats as a lure to start with, to get the attention on me, which isn't ideal but OK as a first step, I figured. We walked by without them bothering even looking at the kids. Frankfurters are an amazing thing.

As we continued on up the path, we came across several dogs, and about six more groups with kids. Some passing us in the opposite direction and some we were overtaking. We did a combination of having W&S sit to the side and treating for their attention staying on us and just walking past. They were really great and barely flickered towards the other people. There was one instance where there were kids playing by a waterfall and the dogs ran towards them, simply because they wanted to get to the pool, but they recalled fabulously and we walked them close to us (not at heel, but close), around the family so we could approach the pool without barrelling past the kids.

They had a couple of short plays with a couple of dogs which were uneventful, other than Willow telling one over-amorous giant off in no uncertain terms!

Even better, a couple of mountain bikers rode past, in full gear, and the pups didn't react at all. Big progress.

So, I was really pleased with that as a training/desensitisation walk.

What I was less pleased with was the amount of human poo that Willow kept finding and eating! I am so not bothered about goat, cow or horse poo, but human is just too disgusting for words. She stinks after eating it and, even worse, holds it in her mouth for a while, so it hangs around for ages. ICK! I'm at a bit of a loss on how to deal with this; there is really so much of it on the mountain, it's unbelievable. I never realised until I got a Lab. Do people not know how to hold it until they get to a toilet?! We're getting to the point with "leave it" that I can call her away from many things, but this is the ultimate prize, so there is no way. I also don't want to have to tell her to leave it, because the logistics are such that I don't necessarily see her doing it immediately (people generally "go" off the side of a path, behind a tree).
I know it's a case of starting with lower-value treats on the floor and expecting her to walk past these, and build up to much higher value. But - er - does this mean at some point, I'll have to proof against human poo. Which isn't something I can just go and find at whim, so would I have to take it along with me?!?!? ICK!!!!

I'm really not sure Willow would ever willingly leave something so tasty without any cue, so am I just wasting energy worrying about it?

The other aspect is that it really doesn't agree with her and she ends up with very runny poo of her own - and last week, she vomited on her bed after eating some, which, as you can imagine, made the living room smell absolutely delightful.

Advice?

PS I did warn you in the title that it was disgusting!

 

Errrr.....well, first off, well done on the training walk! Sounds like they are coming along just fine!

As for the other.....I can't even imagine. I mean, seriously, people just drop their pants and poo wherever they like? I can't quite wrap my head around it. Thanks the good Lord and all that is holy, Simba is NOT a poo eater. I'm certain it would put me over the edge. But this?? I couldn't handle it.

I'm not sure you will be able to proof her against it. Like you say, kinda tricky to set up. Ugh, I feel kinda nauseous at the thought.

Sorry, not much help.....

 

I agree, sorry I'm no help either, I read this twice as I thought I'd read it wrong. Mabel is a horse, goose and rabbit poo eater which is bad enough and I can't get her to stop it doesn't matter how high value the treats are it doesn't work. I'll be following this topic carefully.

 

I have zero issue with goat poo eating, which is the most common one I have to deal with, although I do like to use it as a "leave it" opportunity and she does really well with that now. I have to worry about both of them with cow/horse, if it's fresh - Willow will eat it and Shadow will roll in it. I think eating is the lesser of two evils - at least I don't have to clean up after that!

The human thing is gross. In general, we're talking about a way from civilisation, and I suppose if you gotta go, you gotta go. Except, I don't subscribe to that wholeheartedly because in all the time I've been here, I've never just had to go! However, there are cases where it's happened really close to places there are toilets, so I have to wonder, why?! I know that however long I live here, I will never understand certain things about the different European cultures.

 

What I've done in the past, and really worked with the goat poo thing, was use cheese, which is tastier for Willow than the poo. I would put a big chunk of cheese on the floor and, with her on lead, stand at a distance from it. She would fixate on it, but I would wait, C&T when she looked towards me. Gradually move closer, again C&Ting when she looked away from the cheese. Then, started the same but with movement. So, walking past at a distance and C&Ting for her ignoring it, or purposely looking away. Gradually getting closer and closer. I then progressed to the same thing, starting at a distance again, but with the lead dragging instead of me holding it, and then eventually without a lead. When she was good at ignoring it, I'd put in a chirpy "leave it!" as a cue. If I catch her taking goat poo, a "leave it!" will bring her away from it, although she'll finish what's in her mouth. Is it even possible to get them to spit food out??

As something to note, OH also tries "leave it" on occasion (much to my annoyance) but he uses a gruff voice, whereas, even when I'm frustrated, I force myself to stay chirpy. The happy, excited voice works a million times better than the annoyed one!

 

She would, if you wanted to put in the time to train it. You could train her to leave a raw fillet steak until given the cue to take it....but, she has to be under orders at the time, I think. It strikes me that what you are asking is for her to leave something when she hasn't been asked to do anything else - ie she is free to do what she wants.

So a solution, if you wanted to implement it, is to have her at heel, close, or within 5m - whatever you choose - and exercise her on walks by sending her back for retrieves.

This is not so different from what I do with Charlie in a busy London park (in normal times, when off lead). He can never be allowed to choose what to do - because he would choose to go jump on the nearest kid with skate board, kite, ball, whatever....so his freedom is limited by always knowing what he has to do. It's not such a big deal, to be honest, but it means that "go free" does not happen on every walk. I think it was harder for me to get over that rather than Charlie to be honest.

 

Yes. It's possible to train them to pick food up and give it to you. But do you have a life? If so, you don't have time to train it!

Donna Hill has done an amazing set of vids training her dog to pick up a hotdog sausage and give it to her. Brill. She started with a frozen hotdog wrapped in cling flim and slowly, slowly, unwrapped and defrosted it....gosh, must have taken forever...impressive though.

No chance with Charlie. Although, having said that, might be a bit easier than getting him to bring a dummy back!

 

People don't even bother to bury their poo? That is disgusting. People need to take a little spade with them.

I think that walking on lead or at heel (as Julie describes) is probably the only realistic solution.

 

Willow and Shadow are doing so well Fiona. As for the poo - yuk, yuk, yuk. I used to go dog training with Hattie years ago and met a lady and her two Golden Retrievers would find human poo in the woods and roll in it, try washing it out of that coat People never cease to amaze me with just how disgusting they really can be

 

Yuk. This is disgusting and I hope I never run into it. I have had to get a used condom out of Chepi's mouth and today "came across" 2 men in the bushes doing up their flies. I was walking past with Chepi when up they popped.

 

I feel I should say it was the seedy situation that was yuk rather than it being 2 men - no offence intended .

 

I'm pretty sure that frozen and wrapped in film wouldn't make a jot of difference to my two. They quite happily demolish frozen turkey drumsticks, a frankfurter would offer no challenge at all!

To be fair, it would be impossible to bury on most of the mountain because it's absolutely rock solid. I just can't understand how so many people appear to be "caught short". If I ever find it before Willow does, I put a load of rocks over the top. Better than nothing.

 

Maybe the diet in Andorra is particularly high fibre?

 

Juno does like to snack if given the opportunity when she is on a walk although it is quite rare nowadays for her to pick up and eat. I use a "Leave it" command which she was trained on with treats in the garden when she was little - many thanks to my trainer for introducing that on our first lesson together . If she does pick it up it's not unheard of her to spit it out when told to drop it. I know I'm lucky that Juno does have a great "leave it" and doesn't touch food dropped on the floor unless she is told she can . My "leave it" is said in a firm voice and the high pitched happy voice is for "good girl" when she comes away after sniffing and she may or may not get a treat. I must I didn't "proof" it with different distances or items but when she is off lead she isn't allowed to roam far from us and we are always watching for snacking opportunities to occur, luckily enough at least we don't have to worry about human execrement - yuk

 

couldn't agree more, I have the same problem.

I've been a bit lazy on the training front today, definitely give it a try.

 

Just read this and I know how horrified I'd have been but so funny.

 

A similar thing happened here a few years ago in the winter. One of the instructors was taking a group of kids through the trees and came across a couple in flagrante delicto!

 

hi
a least its country poo and hopefully the outdoorsy people are healthy i live in the city and you would not believe(well you would) the kind of human poo (beer and curry night) that gets left lying around. I even was walking on a park when a man took his trousers down and did one in front of me, he had a newspaper and was reading it as he did it. I offered him a bag and told him that i had to pick up my dogs so maybe he should pick up his own. My mind still has the vision engraved in it of my two oldest dogs pulling a pair of poo filled boxers apart to see who got the biggest bit.
S