Anyways...


Go to YouTube and type "Bird Box Studio Pub Dog" and see if you recognise your own hound...

Slightly O/T.

What is it with dogs and crisps?
I reckon it's the salt ... I watched two dogs in the local pub, one of them licked a crisp packet from one end of the bar to the other but the smarter one knew to put his foot on it to hold it still.

Every dog I have ever known has treasured a crisp packet and would sit patiently waiting for you to finish it before taking to their bed, splitting it so that it folded out into one piece and spending all night long licking it, the splitting down the seam and neatly folding it out must be genetic now because they've all known how to do it.

The current hound also covets used yoghurt pots.

Nothing worse than seeing a dog with a broken spirit. Void of life and ruled by the iron fist of it's owner.

Mine's a Russel cross ( staff we think ) rescue goes by the name of Hendrix ( or little 5hit when he ' legs it ' with my socks ) and he knows exactly who the ' Boss ' is

Him

On facebook under Hendricks pike

Got a rescue Staff Weimaraner cross a couple of months ago (reckon the dad must have been the Weimaraner unless the Staffy managed to get hold of some stilts. Anyway he was dumped by his previous owner around two years old, guess he got a bit too much for them to handle and he spent most of his life in a back yard or a crate. In his favour he's crate trained and not aggressive as well as being a sucker for a bit of attention. On the downside if you ignore him for any length of time he suddenly appears with either a shoe or cushion in his mouth and tries to start a game of chase with it. He's also pushing the boundaries by climbing on the furniture and then cowering but ignoring any instructions to get off. He then goes into passive aggressive mode and growls when you try and shift him. If there's any sin bin behaviourists about a bit of advice would be appreciated lol.

You could try using a long house line on him. When he jumps on the sofa, gently grab the line and bring him down, using a cue word like "off" and once he is down treating and plenty of praise. I let my two on my sofa, but they know they have to be on their own "cushions", likewise with my bed, I have a throw which they lay on. I don't think he's pushing the boundaries, this is probably a learned and acceptable behaviour in a previous life and you want to now change the behaviour, which is ok, just going to take some work and patience with him and plenty of practise.

As with the shoe or cushion, is it that you want him to play but not with those items? If thats the case and you want him to play with an acceptable toy you need to get that toy when he comes to you and ask him to drop the unwanted item in favour of the acceptable toy. If he is more food orientated you could start with teaching him the "drop" using a treat first and when he gets this change the treat for his favourite toy. I wouldn't discourage play unless its not acceptable or the right time for you ie you are on the way out, to bed etc.

If you feel he has too much energy check the protein level in his food. For example feeding Bakers with all the e numbers (sunset yellow is banned in the UK for children) is like giving kids McDonalds for breakfast, dinner and tea 7 days a week. I use a working dog food but its only branded as that to get around the VAT. James Wellbeloved, Burns or Chappie are good commercial foods.

Be careful when choosing a new pet food to make sure that it's ethically produced. Some pet food manufacturers actually keep animals caged to use them for taste testing. The more ethical ones do testing on family pets kept in the home.

The 'uncaged' website used to have a list of foods to avoid, with Purina, Pedigree, James Wellbeloved and Iams being amongst those featured as being particularly poor. The website has been archived now, so I'm not sure if that info is still current.

There's a link rlhererl to another website with a list of manufacturers and an ethical rating out of 20. The organic ones are really expensive, but there are plenty in the 8/9/10 rating range that are not too costly.

Quote: Rock God X "Be careful when choosing a new pet food to make sure that it's ethically produced. Some pet food manufacturers actually keep animals caged to use them for taste testing. The more ethical ones do testing on family pets kept in the home. The 'uncaged' website used to have a list of foods to avoid, with Purina, Pedigree, James Wellbeloved and Iams being amongst those featured as being particularly poor. The website has been archived now, so I'm not sure if that info is still current. There's a link rlhererl to another website with a list of manufacturers and an ethical rating out of 20. The organic ones are really expensive, but there are plenty in the 8/9/10 rating range that are not too costly.'" We feed CSJ www.csjk9.com/ They keep the costs down by plain packaging, not advertising and marketing the products as working dog food to get around the VAT.

Quote: Rock God X "Be careful when choosing a new pet food to make sure that it's ethically produced. Some pet food manufacturers actually keep animals caged to use them for taste testing. The more ethical ones do testing on family pets kept in the home. The 'uncaged' website used to have a list of foods to avoid, with Purina, Pedigree, James Wellbeloved and Iams being amongst those featured as being particularly poor. The website has been archived now, so I'm not sure if that info is still current. There's a link rlhererl to another website with a list of manufacturers and an ethical rating out of 20. The organic ones are really expensive, but there are plenty in the 8/9/10 rating range that are not too costly.'" We feed CSJ www.csjk9.com/ They keep the costs down by plain packaging, not advertising and marketing the products as working dog food to get around the VAT.

I'd probably go along with HWS and I know the Dogs Trust behaviorist would too in that persuasion and reward and particularly the same command word will work, you can't shove a big dog off a settee, I know that too

Our GSD has his favourite position on one of our settees, its his guilty secret but not so much of a secret, if you leave the room he'll climb up on there and lay with his big head on the arm ready to stare at you with those puppy dog eyes when you walk back in - we don't even have to say anything to him now, just point to the floor and he gets off, thats simply from re-affirming the same message over and over again, rewarding the correct reaction from him (ie getting off) but most importantly making sure that all of the family tell him the same thing every time he climbs up there - we'll never stop him doing it but he never resists being told to get off.

my brothers Rottweiler/lab loves yoghurt pots too, I'd finished a muller corner and before I'd even put it down for him he had his face in it and bit straight through the pot.

He also seems to have a thing for takeaway chips, mainly the crunchy little ones, must be the same as the obsession with crisps all dogs have. He's still learning to behave so he gets the "sit, paw, high five, lie down, roll over" before he gets food and as I went to give him a chip last night he did the whole routine before I'd asked he was that excited

Thanks for the advice, I tried substituting his toy today and it worked quite well. I also used it to coax him off the couch with too so all in all quite a success.

He's got plenty of energy as you say and seems to need about two hours of walking a day which suits me quite well as I manage to combine it with a trip to the allotment. Foodwise the vet warned us about Bakers so we've been giving him Burns instead.

I must admit to secretly liking her black and white (probably why) border collie.
It's a bit of a fussy pain in the @rse but is a pleasure after the snarling horrible little Jack Russell typee thing she had.
Fooking horrible little rat that was.
I wasn't particularly unhappy when it popped it's clogs.

For someone who has made a point of never having anything to do with our 4 legged friends I've even started taking it out for the ocassional walk and even picking it's shoite up.

A new man?

We should have play dates with the dogs on Rockford Green