Brilliant!

Well we've now got Nancy who doesn't have much of a clue about anything (even her name) bless her. She's mastered stairs after a few days trying - biggest achievements so far - getting her to learn to wait when the car's opened without launching herself out, and getting the pair of them to wait outside the kitchen door while I make their food without having to do the hurdles over dogs in my tiny kitchen - Layton cracked onto it straight away, Nancy's taken a bit longer but she understands "out" and then sits there waiting at the line where the kitchen floor starts and living room floor stops.

For a dog with no impulse control for whom humans have just been food dispensers and taxi services for the last 7 years that's pretty good going and I'm proud of her for it.

"Watch me" and recognising her name are coming on slower but she's starting to have a bit of focus on me rather than everything all at once - inevitable really since she's not been in a home environment before.

Well done Nancy sounds like she's quickly settling in

Just a little update on Ted, everything has been going really well we've only had a handful of lunges at other dogs in the last few weeks and this has been mostly when he isn't allowed to greet the other dog. I was particularly chuffed when he met a dog he normally goes mad at, the owner came round the corner first so i just stepped off the path as i didn't realise who it was i could just see he had a dog. The other dog when it realised it was Ted came charging over teeth bared and ran around Ted to have a sniff. Ted just stood still tail wagging at the owner who was telling his dog not to be naughty and then we where able to walk off

On Sunday we had a busy day we met Razcox from here for a walk with her gorgeous dogs. Ted was brill no lunging and happy to plod along and watch them play when i let him off lead. We ended up passing and meeting quite a few dogs and he was great it was quite good to be able to stand back and let the other dogs greet first allowed me to treat Ted for being calm and then let him say hello. I did get only a couple of pics as they where to fast for my camera.

Here he is watching them run around. To much hard work for him


About half way round he decided he was actually quite interested in the girls


And with the lovely Cassie


After that we went for another session with the trainer which went really well i'm not sure if he was to knackered from the walk and the heat or it was just as i was more relaxed but he didn't put a foot wrong only to tell the Staffy who jumped on him off but they where happy to walk on ignoring each other and then had another sniff just before he took him off. I totally fell in love with a elderly shephard mix which he met first especially when he realised i had sausages and wanted to be my best friend

In an effort to go somewhere we might meet more dogs we ended up having a walk completly to ourselves Monday night it was brilliant as it was along the river and Ted had a good hour and a half off lead splashing in the river and chasing the ducks and his recall was pretty much spot on Hopefully this will continue!

Awww well done Nancy, sounds like she's coming along nicely already, and I'll bet she only goes from strength to strength

And Ted, WOW! Look at him in those photos, I have the biggest goofiest grin on my face, I am so pleased for you! He has made so much progress in the last few months, it really sounds like something has clicked for him. Go Ted!

Went for a walk yesterday and bumped into a small herd(??) of sheep they've never been there before and I've been going there a while on and off.

Kiara saw them first and set off chasing them so I instantly whistled her and she immediatley stopped and came back - Woohoo she was in full chase mode. I was so impressed with her. I kept her and Poppy to heel and told them to leave and we walked straight past them without a hitch! Although Kiara was giving them the evil eye and you could see she really wanted to go she didn't

Well done girl xx

Well done on getting Kiara to recall from chasing a flock of sheep! What a good girl.

Glad to hear you are feeling more positive about Cain now, Moon's Mum. Sometimes a little bit of fun-time gives you the strength to get back on track when feeling negative and you have certainly done that!

Great pics of Ted. Lovely to see him enjoying himself and chillin'.

Thanks you Amanda he is being really good lately i am really proud of him lets hope it continues

Well done Kiara! That's fantastic!

Thank you

Sometimes Cain utterly amazes me with how smart he is

He had been training to put plastic baby stacking rings on the spike. I bought a rubber ring as his heavy mouth is crushing the light plastic. Today I tried it, unsure if he'd generalise the behaviour with a different ring. I shouldn't have doubted him, he picked it up and popped it on the spike right away. I then decided the spike was too small to swapped it for a cone, again he easily generalised the behaviour and immediately hooked the rubber ring over the cone.

This evening we started two new tricks. Within 5 mins he had learned to retrieve a handkerchief from a tissue box to my hand, just need to add the "Atchoo" cue. Then within another 5 mins he learned to target a card and then with it taped to the door, close it entirely, again just need to add the cue. In winter he's always opening the living room door and letting the heat out and all last year I go sick of getting up the shut the door so this winter, if he opens it, he can close it!

I amazed he picked up both tricks, first attempt, within a few mins I'm going to run out of tricks at this rate! I bought Braingames for Dogs and realised that we've already done most of it

O Well done you.

Clever boy Cain! He certainly sounds smart.

I haven't posted about Polo recently as he has been too norty However, we are back on track again now.

We have got two collies staying for two weeks and one is a bit reactive. Thought it might be a bit of a nightmare as she will bark at Polo in his run and between the two of them it can be a headache. So I took them down the paddock to become reaquainted away from the house.

Polo ignored Penny and she him for a few minutes. Then Polo approached her wagging his tail and invited her to play! I was gobsmacked! They had a scamper about, totally relaxed and then got the other collie out to join them. No problems.

Back at the house they are calm, relaxed with no fence barking even.

well done Cain!

Amanda, have you tried the 101 Dog Tricks book by Kyra Sundance? Its good (just ignore the bop on the nose part - I say 'aht!' instead)

I wanted that book too but just looked at it in the bookshop the other day and there is tons more in the one above! Also, I seen this (which I am thinking of getting, even though the tricks are in the 101 book); http://www.domorewithyourdog.com/pag...sworkbook.html

oh and I only just seen this! you can get cert's too, how cool http://domorewithyourdog.com/pages/d...thyourdog.html (not looked into that yet though)



sorry went a bit off topic there

EDIT; the workbook has different things to do with your dog each day I think, over and above your training, like listing your enrichment activities.....what do you think?...sorry more OT!!