Lovely walk this morning with Bramble and Benson. Both on lead and behaving impeccably (after a fashion) Getting close to car, parked on a quiet lane, opposite a church. The squirrel took it time, kinda tango'd across the lane..stopped.. I swear it waved at this point.. Yup you guessed it, I am doing my best spinning top, with a very strong Bramble flying in front of me, seriously, I just couldn't stop! Even worse the church goers are coming out of the church so I had a audience. Oh it was bad...really bad... So now need to work out how to proof against squirrels..maybe plant some stuffed ones in trees? sigh..
Oh my, what a picture you have painted! I really have no room to chuckle given that Saba once face-planted me in the mud!
Ooops! I had a narrow miss with a cat today. Went 5 yards from house to car off lead, and it was sitting there up the road. I thank my lucky stars it didn't move. She was pretty sure it was there, but a twitch of a move from it and she would have been gone. No smugness here either.
Good luck with that one! It's the only animal that I struggle with around Harley.........they often sit on our fence and run up and down it until she goes out into the garden On walks it's the only animal that she will chase.......she ignores everything else! Let me know how the proofing goes x
Couldn't help smiling at your description, but know in reality it must have been awful for you. There are squirrels up my lane and yes, they do stop to wave sometimes! My dog has been trained, or perhaps trained himself, that when he saw a person, a dog, pheasants, squirrel, he would run back to me for the tennis ball and not chase.
It was very easy to stop Charlie chasing animals - I have to admit to being smug about it. Although he was a horror for chasing other things, I got his 'don't chase' nailed early for birds and animals. Did something right with him for once! Betsy though - she is an absolute horror for chasing birds and squirrels. We haven't come across many cats yet, but I know she is going to be awful. I spend most of my time on 'don't chase'. It's a big drain on time.
Yes, not good! She is not generally much of a puller, and quite easy to settle on a walk. I was taken aback by her strength, and she actually dragged both myself and poor Benson a few feet before I was able to plant myself and get sorted. Benson looked at her as if to say she was stoooopid.. (he does that a lot mind...) and Bramble had this look which just said SQUIRREL!SQUIRREL!SQUIRREEELLLL!!!
I found squirrels helped reduce Tatze's wish to chase. We get lots in our local park, but of course, they are up the nearest tree as soon as the dog chases. So, when we suddenly come across deer in the local nature reserve she cheeses them to the nearest tree then comes back - no training from me. She just expects them to go up the trees! Tatze, squirrel trained!! ...
Hee Hee - a few of us had a conversation the other day about whether a dog will give up chasing when it doesn't catch the squirrel. I reckon some dogs will, others won't. I was always able to call Charlie off a squirrel from his first walk. Not so Betsy. It doesn't matter that she doesn't catch them....she shows no sign of quitting trying anytime soon.
Yup, no way would Shadow be put off chasing just because he didn't catch whatever it was. He finds running after things massively rewarding, but isn't interested in holding onto the ball (or whatever) once he's caught it. Willow is the opposite. She will assess whether or not she'll catch something before setting off - for example, if I throw something and there's competition from another dog, she'll decide whether she'll win. If not, she doesn't bother running, because for her, owning the thing is the reward, not the chase itself.
Tatze is something of a lazy princess! She's the same with swimming. She'll do it if there is no other dog around to fetch whatever is thrown, any other dog around and she leaves it to them and doesn't even get her feet wet!
You paint a lovely picture. Its best to try and suppress that while she's young. Cocoa was a manic squirrel chaser but was a bit slow witted. When the squirrels went up the tree she slammed into it at full speed. That was probably how her shoulder injury occurred.
I have a brilliant idea...I have this small, soft squeaky squirrel, think it was from pets at home, so will buy a few more and velcro them randomly on our fence.,,, @Bensons-dad doesn't think it will work..
Ah, we fell victim to a cat this morning. It appeared suddenly from behind a hedge - Coco slipped my grip and gave chase through the next hedge into a garden. I crept in after him, no sign..then he appeared behind me, from between parked cars in the neighbour's garden. He came when I called , he was covered in cobwebs. The plus side, is I had a good skeet into the back garden
