I scraped a soft-ish one up from a pile of rotting leaves this morning - that's quite easy too - I had a see-through sandwich bag stuffed full of leaves with a poo core.
Stanley just had a mad minute and was mouthing me so I folded my arms and tried to ignore him for a few seconds. So he jumped up, head butted me and bust my lip. It's a good job he's cute!!
Quinn jumps at me sometimes when she’s excited and zooming around in fresh snow and goes for my mittens. Yesterday her tooth caught my brand new mitts but they are too cute to be mad at!!
Axel chipped my husband’s tooth once when he head butted him he has busted my lip once also. Each time I was more concerned if Axel was ok
I'm very proud of Rory. He's had to have eye drops in this week. It's always hard to get them in but I did it before his breakfast and tea. He can see his food waiting and knows as soon as they are in he gets it. He's being so good though he goes to the position waits calmly I put them in that's it. No hiding dancing or messing around. I'm sure it's his age he seems to be getting so much more confident and able to take things in his stride.hes such a lovely dog and does so many things which make me adore him but this is just wonderful. I have a problem with the micro movements in my hands and it's always hard for me to do stuff like this and it's a big stress for me. Kindness and patience pay this morning I felt he actually chose to accept them and that eye drops weren't it fun but OK and I could put them in he was ready for them. Such a sweet boy
To get us through the rest of winter without going stir crazy, I've just signed up for a tricks class. I think it will hold Quinn's interest and whatever we learn we can practice indoors in bad weather. Hoping she learns something super cute to impress visitors with!
Oh dear, what an afternoon. Gundog training was a disaster today. We had a real pheasant (dead) trying to teach Ripple not to eat game; after a few stern 'leave its' we thought it was going well and Ripple was giving the pheasant back. Then we put him on a long line and threw the pheasant for a retrieve, it very quickly became obvious that Ripple wasn't going to bring it back so we held the line and walked up to Ripple but there was no way he was going to give it up and he ate the breast before we could wrestle it away from him. Now it doesn't look like we can progress any further with our gundog training . Yesterday Ripple ate so much sheep, deer and dog poo on our walk that he was sick in the car going home. So what with that and today, and on the recommendation of the trainer, I have made some decisions. I am going to put a muzzle on Ripple for some of his walks to stop the eating. I am going to work on recall and use a harness and long line to achieve this in certain situations. So I bought the muzzle and harness on the way home today. But I am not sure which sort of long line to get, I read about the biothane ones, so possibly one of those. Any advice would be helpful. The other thing that's puzzling me is rewarding Ripple for recall when he has a muzzle on - I know some of the forum members use a muzzle so any help on that would be gratefully received. Sorry about the essay but I've got so much stuff going round in my head .
Biothane long lines are good. They don't get tangled, snagged or absorb water. They're easy to clean when they've been dragged through poo, too As for the giving up the game, it really sounds like you just have to work on proofing your give cue. With a pheasant you can make it less exciting to start with by putting it in a sock - did you do that? Have you worked on a pheasant pelt around a dummy prior to this? Again, far less exciting than the real thing, but you start in a sock/stocking and then gradually make more holes so the feathers stick out more. You shouldn't have to use stern "leave it"s if you build up the proofing correctly and make it rewarding for him to deliver. You can still use treats with basket muzzles. I know some people like to use squeezy cheese, baby pouches etc. Or use other types of rewards - play games with him that don't involve his mouth.
Thank you @snowbunny - the reason we used the pheasant was because of Ripple eating the duck on the beach at Christmas and I wanted to prevent this happening again. But I can see what you are saying it would be better to use less exciting things to start with - I'll suggest that to the trainer. Biothane sounds the way to go, what length is best? I didn't think about my squeezy cheese, that would work. I sometimes use tubes filled with mashed up sardines as well. I don't think Ripple is into any games that don't involve his mouth though .
Yup, I understand you’d want to crack his eating things issue! Slow and steady wins the race. I’m surprised the trainer didn’t do that; it’s very common practice. Was the pheasant frozen? That’s something else that can make them a little less exciting. I’d definitely start with s pheasant pelt covered dummy in s sock to start with, though. I think my long line is 4 or 5 metres and that’s plenty long enough. They get cumbersome (and more dangerous) if they’re too long.
I don’t think you should be disheartened - I would be very surprised if none of the successful gundogs out there had ever once had a little munch of a phessie early on in their training. It is essentially a big lump of meat that they are required to retrieve! There are definitely lots of tricks I have read about lurking on gundog forums (that also snowbunny has mentioned) involving gradually building up the pheasant-ness of the retrieve, like just attaching a few feathers to a normal dummy, to a frozen pheasant in a sock, to a thawed pheasant in a sock, etc. It just sounds like perhaps the trainer jumped Ripple in too quick asking him to go straight to a fresh pheasant retrieve! I am sure it doesn’t mean you can’t ever progress further with your gundoggery. (Sorry I seem to have used many double negatives in this post, I hope you know what I mean!)
The trainer wants Ripple to take a few months break while I work on his general eating of everything, including using the muzzle to try and break the habit. Also work on his recall which is tied to the eating as he very often won't come back if he's found something tasty to eat. This dog really keeps me on my toes .
Am I the only one who thinks that you need a more versatile trainer? I know gundog training is specific, maybe I am expecting too much. A very non-holistic approach??
