Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

A Good Dog Trainer…Day Two Hundred, Ninety Eight

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I was blessed to find Sara when I was looking for a training classes for Sampson.  Sara is one of those dog trainers who understand people.  She trains dogs in traditional training methods, and she recommends what she thinks will work for your pet but won’t MAKE you do it her way.  She is wise enough to understand that not all methods work for all dogs.

Even though Sara does not use treats in her training classes, she does not discourage me from doing so.  Most of the dogs know I have treats because after class I am very free with whatever I have left.  On Thursday night; we did some heeling work, but we also practiced a lot of the down and sit stays.  I was amazed with Delilah because while she will do a down at home, she really fights me in a training class, but she was so good that night!!  She went into her downs very easily (of course I had treat in hand to reward her.)  Her stays had me a little confused; at times she got right up and followed me, or came to me without being called, but then there were the times when a lot of dogs were getting up and she just stayed there!  I really cannot figure her out.

There was one funny incident when one of the women called her dog and he got up and came to lean against me.  That would be my Brockway;  the outrageously HUGE Alaskan Malamute.

The whole point of this post is to remind you how important it is to feel comfortable with your trainer, if your trainer is forcing you to do something you don’t feel is right for your dog, then you should find another trainer.

This is the Saturday morning blog hop hosted by Two Little Cavaliers…..hop on.

You can link up here.

Follow-up Friday….Day Two Hundred, Ninety Seven

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For those of you new to this blog, I like to follow-up on Fridays with any updates or thoughts from the previous week.

Blogland Help – Update

Thank you everyone that wrote in with suggestions for Laura and how to introduce/deal with two dogs.

This was listed on Laura’s Facebook page on Wednesday.

“It’s official.  We are now the proud parents of TWO dogs.  Vet says she’s healthy, a little over a year old and who knows what she is.  Mixed Breed is what they say – she’s 41 lbs and probably won’t get much bigger.  She has her appt to get spayed and chipped and her name is Ginger.  I have to say that since I’ve been home, for some ODD reason I want to keep calling her Fern. ??????? It took FOREVER to get her in the car and now she likes it so much it’s hard to get her out. :D”

The Vet also said that Ginger’s milk is dried up, so the puppies may have been gone for a while.   No ideas of where they went.

I Feel Lost – Author’s Note

Monday started off really bad, I hadn’t gotten much sleep and as is usually the case, it makes your tolerance level much lower.    The good news was that Delilah DID come back from her romp and we were all safe.

Tomorrow IS Another Day – Update

As I said Monday started off bad, but the good news is on Tuesday I had lots of positive comments and support, which helped bolster my resolve.  I also checked out one of the clicker training websites in my area and chatted online with the trainer for a few minutes.  She gave me some tips to help with some of the behaviors I want to focus on and I plan on budgeting in at least one session with her in October, to help get me started.

I am really excited to learn clicker training because I really want to teach a clicker class at The Mellow Mutt.

Delilah’s exuberance and excitement for life is something amazing to behold and I by no means want her to lose that, I just want to make sure she is safe.

What’s In YOUR Kong – Author’s Note

I was inspired by all of you who wrote in telling me what was in your dog’s Kongs.  I got some great ideas to fill the Kongs with.  Plus ideas about having more than one stuffable toy or making a bunch at once.  Last night the dogs got green beans, carrots and cheese in their Kongs. 😉

Our week started out rocky, but we rocked our week.  Hope you did too.

K-9 Kamp Week Two Results….Day Two Hundred, Ninety Six

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Yesterday ended week two of K-9 Kamp, hosted by Koly and Kelly.  Our challenge this week was to complete one hour of fetch.

You would think this would be an easy challenge because Sampson and Delilah are labs (or in Sampson’s case a lab mix;) but that wasn’t the case. 🙁

We started out like gangbusters on Saturday.  I enlisted Hubby’s help because he has a better arm than I do, so up to the field we went with one of Delilah’s bumpers.  After about 10 minutes Delilah lost interest and it was only me fetching the bumper.

We tried again on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.  If we got 10 minutes each day that was doing something.  Although Wednesday Sampson got a wild burst of energy and took off with the bumper, enticing Delilah to run with him.

But the bumper quickly got dropped and they ended up wrestling. (Does that count?)

All told I will say, we probably got about 30 minutes of fetch in.  Very poor showing in my book for two labs.

While I was formulating this blog in my mind this morning, I decided to check the K-9 Kamp to see what week three’s challenge might be.

I thought fetch was hard.

This week’s challenge is to play tug of war with your dog.  For an hour.  Oh but it doesn’t end there, oh no.  You’re expected to do squats, lunges and push ups all while playing tug of war with your dog. That might work for Jodi with Kolchak the Puggle who weighs 25 pounds, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work for this Jodi with the 75 and 90 pound labs. 🙂

To quote Kolchak T. Puggle “It’s not much of a war when your Mama is an out of shape weakling.”

Tune in next Thursday (if I’m still able to blog) to find out how we fare with this next challenge.

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