Happy Pets

With the puppy sitting on your left-hand side, give a quiet, but firm, Wait command. Do not use puppy’s name. Puppy should always associate his name with coming to you and we do not wish him to do that on this occasion. Take one small pace to your right, count one second and return to your dog and praise him. He shouldn’t have had time to move. If he has, just patiently put him back into the Sit position and try again. You are only expecting puppy to wait there for one second. Extend your puppy’s waiting time very gradually. If you rush it, puppy will want to come to you and you have achieved nothing.

Many puppies lose their confidence if they think their owner is leaving them. It’s not a bad thing that your puppy wants to be with you constantly, so you must build his confidence up. (more…)

The biggest problem most dog owners have is getting their dogs to return to them on command once the dog is off the lead. But so many owners cause their own problems on this exercise, I’m not surprised their dogs don’t wish to return to them. Let us first view the faults, in the hope of preventing you from making the same mistakes.

Why your dog won’t come back to you

The first and simplest reason your dog will not return to you on command is that you haven’t trained him thoroughly in the garden. If he won’t come when called in the confined space of his own home, he certainly won’t in the freedom of the fields. In the main, owners with untrained dogs are full of excuses. (more…)

The older chewer

Chewing in the older dog can be a big problem, as the born chewer will set about his task of destruction when you’re not around to correct him. Apart from the things that I have described with puppy chewing (leaving lots of things to amuse him if you’re not around) you can take more defensive measures. For example, if he has a habit of chewing the wallpaper, coat the wall with mustard. This can often work, although I own up to the fact that I did this myself when Teak began to chew holes in the wood panelling. Far from deterring her, she was delighted the walls were coated with mustard and spent hours licking it off before proceeding to chew more holes. But you can experiment by sprinkling pepper or buying sprays for this purpose from your local pet shop. (more…)

It is far easier to train a young puppy, for the simple reason that bad habits have not developed. The older dog who has been undisciplined is just like an unruly child and will need far more time and firmness than a young puppy. The sad fact is that most owners do not train their dogs until they are older and have become complete lunatics. Where this has happened, the main aim is to gain complete control. In every case, there is the same basic problem, the dog has no respect for his owner. The easiest method of finding out whether your dog respects you or not is to praise him. If he comes to you with tail wagging and he’s interested in what you have to say, he respects you. If he turns the other way when you stroke him and ignores you completely when you give enthusiastic endearments, he looks upon you as a doormat. All you have to do is to prove to him that you are not. Here are a few basic guidelines to follow if you own a disrespectful dog. (more…)

We all make mistakes, but do we learn by them? I certainly have learnt by the many mistakes I have made with dogs and I would like to tell you about the biggest mistake I have ever made. There may be dog trainers who think they know everything. These are the people to avoid, for if they have not had problems or made mistakes, they cannot understand other people’s difficulties and, after all, nobody’s perfect.

A couple of years ago, we had a space in our dog population. Rather than treat myself to another Labrador, I bought Don a breed I knew he fancied. I don’t wish to tell you what breed Heidi was, as I feel this would prejudice you against the breed. Far too many people read a little of a wrongdoer—a biter or a chaser or a so-called untrainable dog—and label the whole breed with those attributes. I think that’s very unfair. No breed is all bad or all good and I will not accept the responsibility of Heidi’s breed suffering through my mistake, as I make no bones about it—it was my fault. (more…)

The pulling dog

With an adult dog who pulls, you may need to resort to the use of a check-chain. The problem is that if a dog is left to pull, his neck muscles will become well developed and he’ll become hardened to the collar around his neck and a week or two on a check-chain collar will bring him into line, if used correctly. The only reason check-chain collars are cruel is because of the ignorance of the users. Letting someone use a check-chain collar who is untrained is tantamount to giving a child a catapult. It can be very dangerous. If you stick rigidly to the guidelines below you should not make mistakes. (more…)

Many people prefer mongrels to pedigrees. I have no preference. The fact that I own Labradors is because of Emma. But I would be just as eager to own crossbreds if we had more room and money. I did own a mongrel for a week and I would have loved to have kept her, but at the time we had Heidi, and Heidi definitely did not like our little mongrel. I came upon Solo purely by chance. My local pet shop does not stock live animals, so I feel quite safe in shopping there. But one day, as luck would have it, I went shopping with a friend who owned a car, so we decided to be a little more adventurous and go further afield. Just like a dog, when it comes to passing pet shops, I can’t do it—I have go to in. (more…)