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Asalei

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Everything posted by Asalei

  1. Well I rang him last night but his wife answered the phone. She said he was busy and I tried to talk to her. But she told me that I would need to talk to the guy and he'd ring me back... Still no phone call. Rude
  2. When we are doing the training at home, we do it seperately.. OH goes in the back yard and I go in the front. Otherwise if I do one, then go get the other, they whinge and bitch because they are seperated. At class, OH had one and I had the other and the plan was to rotate the dog each week so we both had a go at the one dog.
  3. Yes, very true.. I love my babies too much to put them through that hell! Although, OH would probably say, we've paid.. we need to attend. We didn't sign anything, just given a receipt for the money. Why do I feel nervous about ringing him?!
  4. I'd really like to get the money back!! It would pay for our wedding cake...
  5. From what we gathered, every class will be 2 hours long as there were other groups there Tuesday night that were still going when we left at 9:30... So I guess that's just how long they go every week? I think the best thing for us to do is request a pro-rata refund and look elsewhere for a club that's more puppy friendly.
  6. With the attitudes we experienced the other night, I don't think they'd allow it for someone to watch the class without participating as such. The guy walked along and said "make sure your dog sitting facing the road by your side" as he walked past me. I said "she won't sit or stand, she's too tired!" He walks off and gets everyones attention and said "There two words in obedience that don't exist, can't and won't".. I felt kinda embarrassed... but I knew my poor pup was just so tired, she couldn't sit. He kept telling me to take a step forward to make her sit.. but she get up, walk, sit, then drop back to sleep. *sigh* I always thought the new style of training was with treats... So we were quite suprised when there were no treats and just a check chain. Maybe we should take some treats in our pockets and just sneak them *giggle*. We realise they are scent hounds and are never going to stay by oursides the whole time (there's too many sniffs out there!), but to just have them at least stop pulling on the leads would be great. It's hard as well as they both like to be in front and if you walk one behind the other, it's just not on in their minds! Our beagles don't really eat their meals.. apparently their "eat everything" button hasn't been pushed yet
  7. It's a check chain.. they made us buy one as the collars they've got aren't strong enough and we couldn't use their harnesses (which we understand). I think if they won't give us a refund, we might just go and have them participate in some of it. Kinda seems a waste though paying that amount of money to just stand there :S We really only wanted to make them walk beside us and not keep pulling on the lead, and to stay seated when we ask. Maybe these are two things people can teach us without having to go to a class? The instructor was pretty brutal. He came over to me and told me to make my dog stand, she needs to be learning my commands and do what I ask. Which I totally understand, but when she's been trying to concentrate (at this stage) for 1 and a half hours, I don't think she's going to listen to anyone unless they tell her to go to sleep! MrsD, I'll PM you just incase We do do training at home, but just very basic stuff and not for long periods of time, as we learnt at puppy school to do short bursts of training so their concentration is working. Thanks for the advice, I think we might just postpone or as for a refund. It feels too cruel to have puppies that just want to sleep, on a check chain, whilst they just want to sleep. Also, OH wants to walk them on a check chain but I refuse as we were told they were "just for training".. Is this a way to teach the puppies to walk beside us? Is to use the check chain whilst we go on our morning walks?
  8. Well, we attended our first obedience class on Tuesday night just gone, and I can't say it went too well. I'm actually thinking the puppies are a bit too young to be concentrating on obedience for 2 hours. I didn't expect the class to go so long, but we were there from 7pm till 9:30pm and all the puppies wanted to do is go to sleep. When the instructor kept telling us to make them sit, Sally would stand up and then drop to the ground straight away and curl up to go to sleep. I feel that it's way too long for them to concentrate for. I could tell they were starting to get frustrated by then end as she started trashing around on the chain and throwing herself around. She wasn't doing this in the beginning at all. As soon as she tried to pull, the chain would tighten and she'd sit back down. I think by the end she was just so tired and just wanted to sleep. No matter how much pulling on the chain, sitting her up, making her sit was going to keep her up. So my question is, are they too young to be participating in obedience? Should we maybe put it off another few months until they can concentrate for a little longer than they are? They are 5 months old at the moment.. maybe we are trying to get them to do things too soon? Any trainers, instructors on DOL have an opinions? I just don't want to be pushing them to do something when they are never going to be able to concentrate enough to learn. I understand training is repitition and patience, but last night was more than just patience, they were soo frustrated. We had to carry them home they were so buggered. I'm tempted to ring the instructor and ask if we can postpone for a few months, or ask for a pro-rata refund.. but I don't know how fair that is. It was a bit of money to lose if we don't go back.. especially seeming we are saving madly for a wedding Any advice?
  9. Asalei

    Puppy Escapes

    Our beags have escaped out the fence twice (stupid weak wood). First time the next door neighbour heard them and decided to come around and fix where they got out, so they just followed her around. The second time was quite coincidental as my cat had a bird, so I'd called OH out to come help me and as I looked back outside at the cat/bird, I see two puppies streaming down the side of the fence, off, out into the big bad world! I screamed at OH and we opened the garage door and we were off. Sally luckily came back to dad for cuddles, but Leia thought it was great! I played her game, once she was looking at me, I started running back the other way and then she was playing my game and came running back into the garage and I caught her. Maybe this is a tactic(sp?) you can do? Play his game, but reverse the role of who's chasing. I was lucky though that OH was standing there and if she didn't follow, he was going to go after her. I've never heard of lying on the ground though. However, I think that would work, they'd come and lick our faces to death :rolleyes:
  10. For these bones, do you give them as a meal replacement? Or a treat?
  11. We have two beagles and our two don't do this... Can he see his reflextion or something? Our beags spill water everywhere, but it's the water coming off those big gums as they walk away from the water bowl , not that they've put water everywhere through digging. My sister's staffy does this though, my sister would come home and there would be a puddle of water EVERYWHERE and she though the bowl was leaking, but one day she saw her doing it. She'd even fall asleep with her hands in the water bowl. BUT, go figure, she doesn't like the beach and freaks out at the water!! Silly Daisy.
  12. Can you explain exactly what heeling is? I always thought it was to make the dog stay by your side whilst walking on a lead... is there something more to it? We start our obedience next week and this is one thing I want to learn, as our puppies seem to go from side to side (this may be a beagle thing?) when walking and it's very hard to get them to stay by your side. As you say, the things we really want to learn are: #sit #lie down (drop) #stay #wait #come #leave and #walk nicely on a lead Or girls know very well how to sit, drop, roll.. but not stay. Is heeling not something you learn in general obedience class? This is something that was probably on the top of our list to learn. Unless #walk nicely on a lead has the basics of heeling and this helps them with keeping by your side whilst walking? I guess we kinda have it harder than teaching one dog, as we have two and we are finding it increasingly hard to walk them as they always want to be beside each other and when one goes in front, the other cracks an absolute narna behind and whinges, cries and carry's on. I'm not sure whether my input was what you wanted, as most of the responses seem to be from professionals but, I think I'd give you some feedback being a new obedience mummy next week.
  13. Mis Shel, we've noticed a dramatic decrease in our fingers being used for chewing purposes since starting our beagle puppies on chicken wings. Its nice now that we can have our puppy cuddles on the lounge and not have our fingers chewed off in the meantime!!
  14. It's not uncommon at all for a new puppy to not eat. We brought our two girls home and the first morning they hoofed down their food like there was no tomorrow. Then after that, they wouldn't eat. Being our first set of pups as adults (and being a couple) we were quite worried. The vet said no to worry if they were still drinking water, which they were. We didn't like the idea of taking the food away from them but it was for their own good.. They still don't eat as much as we were told to feed them and often miss meals, but there's one thing for sure is they won't miss out on not eating their chicken wings. I swear they wait all day just to eat those chicken wings. We ditched our breeders diet probably 2 days after bringing them home when we realised they weren't eating it. The excitement of being in a new house with new people was too much to consider eating as well! They got used to it and now if they don't eat, we just take it away. She needs to learn that she should eat when the food is put down because it won't stay there until shes ready to eat it Our vet also told us that canned food was an expensive way to feed a dog dry food. So we stopped feeding them the wet food and have only ever fed them dry food. They are on Optimum puppy and we won't be changing this until they are 12 months old when we should take them off puppy food.
  15. Haha, we are off to the beach again this Saturday and our engagement photo shoot (better late than never!!) so hopefully I'll have a few more nice photos to show you :rolleyes: Thinking also about the peeing on a bed to mark territory, Sally (more dominant one) seems to be the one peeing on it most of the time. I can't say I ever thought of that!! So far they play fight a lot and they've only had one major biff and that was over a pigs ear.. I had to intervene in that one.
  16. Wow Steve, thanks for the heads up. There was only one person who warned us about getting two girls and the reasoning was that they will fight till death and not stop.. That scared me a little but no one else mentioned this. That's pretty scary reading what you wrote :rolleyes: Do you have any tips for us to start doing to try and help with this situation when they grow older? We don't try and favour either of them as we're aware that if we do, they may see this and react to it by fighting for our attention. I'm gob smacked.. I really hope that doesn't happen!
  17. My sister's staffy has a reaction to something in the yard and it comes every spring and she gets really bad and loses all her fur. They even went to the extreme's of finding an injection that would fight what ever it was she was allergic to. VERY expensive, and I think they've now found, not worth it. There's something they use on her skin that's worked wonders.. I have a feeling it's emu oil or something? She looks the best now than she has in ages.. I'll find out what it exactly is and let you know.. EDIT: Yeah, it's Emu Oil and Emu Soap.. It clears her skin up really well and stops the itching and flakey skin.
  18. Steve, is getting them out of the same litter a big factor is it? Sorry, I'm just not aware of this, that's why I was questioning what you meant. I didn't mean to sound defensive, just wasn't sure exactly what you were saying. It's interesting to know that it may change once they are desexed, I can't see Leia (less dominant now) being the dominant one, she's like the dopier one and Sally (dominant now) is the smart one. They will be getting desexed around 6 months as that's when the vets have told us it would be good to do. Some won't do it previous to this age, some will. We decided to wait till they were a little older before getting them desexed. No money making here, just lots of loving cuddles and mischevious trouble ;)
  19. badboyz, we haven't really let them onto our bed as when we got them, one of the things the vet said was to not let them on your bed. That's one big no no in the whole teaching them who's leader thing. I think there's only been twice that I've put them onto the bed when my OH is asleep to wake him up. Both times they have pee'd on the quilt. Never again. They haven't destroyed their bedding though? They've had 2 beds since we bought them home and one of them is too small now for them to sleep in, but they still try!
  20. What do you mean by "Sorry , but you have 2 beagle girls and you got them out of the same litter and at the same time." They've already established who's boss and we dont try and feed that ones ego by making them think they are are that much higher than the other. It's very obvious in their playing and behaviour who's the boss. We will be getting them desexed when they are about 6 months old. We aren't in this to make money, nor to pass on the recessive defect genes that have come through in our pups. One has a bent tail and they both have extra cartlidge in their ears. At the moment they are 19 weeks old, we plan to get them desexed in mid July when we both have a week off work after our wedding and can be home with them. We bought the puppies as pets and companions... they were never purchased for any other reason other than this.
  21. Thanks for your response saltwood, I could take away the blankets no problem, but they also pee in their beds as well. I couldn't take their beds away!! I couldn't be so cruel as to make them sleep on cold tiles ;) I was hoping there was a way to make them stop without taking things away. I'm willing to take their blankets away, but not their beds.. They'd have nothing to sleep on. As for not leaving things out for them to pee on, I leave the things there because they are THEIR blankets they lie on.. not just "something" left on the ground. There's nothing else lying on the ground. I was hoping it was something they'd grow out of
  22. Well, the puppies seem to be toilet trained as far as not peeing and pooing on the ground inside.. BUT, if there's a blanket (read: their blanket) or their bed on the ground, they seem to pee in them. Is this a common step in toilet training? They seem to have gotten the concept of peeing and pooing outside, but if there's something on the ground, it gets pee'd on. Does anyone have any advice for getting the puppies to stop peeing in their beds and on blankets? I'm forever washing their beds because they keep peeing in them. I bought them some new blankets today to keep them warm during the cold nights, and I had them on the ground for them to lie on, and they pee'd on them ;) Any suggestions for the norti puppies? :S
  23. We've bought the Kong paste for puppies that comes in an aerosol can, it smells like vegemite and they go absolutely NUTS over it. We've also started putting it on any tablets the might need to take (one of our girls is on antibiotics atm) and it helps them eat/swallow the tablet. I might try finding some receipes, they haven't really been interested in the kongs until lately, so I might try filling them with interesting stuff.
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