aatainc

One thing which people do with their pups that puzzles me is this: Firstly, they start teaching the recall on lead, instead of off. What's with that? Secondly, when they do finally go off lead, they start with teeny tiny distances and then build up. While this makes sense according to behaviourist's philsophy I actually believe it works against the dog's natural instincts. Think about it. You put dog on lead, call him to you. Why should he come? He doesn't need to come - he's got you on a lead - he knows exactly where you are - why should he come over? No reason. If you pull the dog in with the lead he is not only learning that the lead is the only way you can get him in (therefore watch out when you take it off) but also you are triggering his opposition reflex so he is likely to pull against you. So you use food to get it. Fine. Then when you take the lead off - the dog doesn't recognise the exercise! "'Come;' what's that?" he asks. " we only do "come" on lead. You mustn't really mean the same thing because there's no lead this time. Besides - you can't make me anymore. Quick, let's do a runner while I'm free!" Then there's that tiny distance thing. And people do it over and over. What's the point? Why should the dog come to you when he's only a metre away in the first place? Not only is this unecessary in the dog's mind, but he has no desire to repeat it over and over again because it's BORING! so, once again, people have to show him food to get him to do it. THIS is exactly how so many people end up with dogs that run away as soon as they do long recalls - or dogs that won't come unless there's food. The trick is to use the dog's natural instincts - while he is young - before he has the mental capacity or desire to run away. Use that bit of separation anxiety and anticipation that most pups have to some degree. When I teach recalls, I do them either really long distances within sight, or shorter distances out of sight (like around a corner.) I of course still only do them in controlled environments for safety. Get someone else to hold pup in one room. You give him a pat and make sure he watches you go. Tease him a bit if need be by running or skipping away down the hall and into a different room. Wait a minute. Call him and get other person to let go. Make it really exciting, encouraging him to "run!" Now this time when you call him - he's got real reason to come over to you. He doesn't know where you've gone. You might be doing something exciting without him! What's worse - you've left him all alone and he doesn't like that! So yes, he'll be glad to come. THEN, AFTER he has come most of the way, you can use the food to lure him into a nice sit if you need that taught. I crouch down to "funnel" the dog into me with body language, and ony produce food after he has come in. But I do produce food on a regular basis as a reward - but I don't let my dogs know I have it before I've done the recall. I taught the first puppy I owned to stay before I taught him to come. His stay was really reliable very early on - I worked very hard on it. Anyway, the first time I did recalls I took him down to a huge fenced park, at the tender age of 14 weeks or so, and put him on a drop stay with my mum watching him. I walked SO FAR away I could barely see him. It was over 100m. (There's a running track there so I know.) Then I called him, encouraging him to "come on, RUN!!!" Boy did he fly in. That's how we did our recalls for months. I'd take him out, put him on a long down or sit, walk away as far as I could, then call him. This way, he got more anxious as I left him, so more desirous of coming to me, so I was guaranteed that he wouldnt' run anywhere but to me. After a week or so, he had worked out the game - and he loved it. He loved the thrill of the run in the first place - plus the reward at the end of course which for him was usually just a belly rub. He not only got to really enjoy the recall, but he LOVES doing stays as well. As soon as I put him on a stay he gets very attentive, waiting for the running to me bit. If I return to him, that's ok, but he almost looks dissappointed! and he NEVER did a recall on lead, and he's NEVER missed a recall. I have done this with all of my pups. Kodak here, just been with us for 4 days, has been doing recalls down the hall. I run down the hall all excited while hubby holds him, then he follows on the command "come'. He's doing very well. I was also very concerned with my pointer, Solo, that he may start doing runners on me. I would always have bikkies in my pockets and did long recalls just like this. I never did one on lead, not even once. Took him to puppy preschool at the obedience club the first night. After class, he needed to go to the toilet but he wouldn't go on lead. The place isn't fenced but i figured he wouldn't go far. WRONG. Let him off and he took off - towards the other dogs on the otehr side of the field. Half way across I gathered my wits and called out "come!" He was running full pelt. But he spun on a ten cent piece and flew in - he got a chicken neck for his efforts too. From that day on he's been trusted off lead and has never let me down. Ashanali can testify that at the DOLer's BBQ at her place in december he came back instantly a number of times from the other side of her big yard while he was playing with other dogs. For your whippet - I would have thought this would have been a logical thing to do. He loves to run, right? So, make the recall a race for a while. Take him to a big fenced area, leave him on the longest stay imaginable,then call him, get excited, encourage him to run as fast as he can as he gets closer get right down on the ground for him. give him a big cuddle when he gets right to you. Don't worry about the sit for a while. The recall in general is much more important. Once you have him coming directly to you you can put the sit back in there with some luring. Get together with a friend and have recall races - first dog to get to his owner "wins". This sort of enthusiasm, rather than just standing there waiting for the sit, is much more effective. Make the run part of coming to you rather than running around you. I used to run my dog on the race track at that oval. HE could do a 100m recall faster than the olympic athletes! I know a lot of people will disagree with this approach to teaching the recall but it hasn't failed me yet (for the dogs that I did this with from the beginning - yes I have had some dogs raised by other people who's recalls left a lot to be desired at first but they were all trained using traditional recall methods.) I think recall is one of the quickest behaviours to get if you use the dog's natural instincts like this.

give her about 1/3 of an adult dose.

both polaramine syrup and tablets area available over the counter at the chemist. The phenergan is stronger and I think requires a prescription, but a lot of people keep it around at home.

I have had my dog's face swell up from a bee sting on her lip. The vet offered me an antihistamine injection which was going to cost a bomb. I said "pity I can't just give her a polaramine." "well you can - said the vet." So, we saved the money and went home and gave her one and she was fine. I was told that phenergan and polaramine are fine for dogs - give them the dose that they would have at that weight for a human. My dog is 50kg so she just got a normal adult dose. They will also make her a bit sleepy - as for humans - but this may be good if she's upset about the itching. I think the vet said that any of the human antihistamines that do make you drowsy are fine but he said to steer clear of the non-drowsy ones like claratyne, zyrtec and telfast as he wasn't sure about them. Children's polaramine syrup is best - and the dogs will eat it as it tastes good too.

haha toohey -Dexter is exactly the same. Has a really brilliant recall 99% of the time - and will do it around native birds either flying or on the ground no probs - but if there's a pigeon - see ya later! There's no way he comes back when there's a pigeon. He just sits there and stares at it endlessly - if it breaks, he chases it. Then sits there staring at where he last saw it. Idiot. Gosh, I love him.

This is getting ridiculous. At no stage did I call anyone a troll. Nor did I say that it "must be a troll". My original comment was constructive unless you are feeling particularly sensitive. I said that I THOUGHT that byott MIGHT have been trollING. TrollING could be defined as any posting (or reposting) that is done simply to get lots of responses. I would have thought that perhaps reposting a number of times would have done it. I didn't realise that the last 2 posts were accidentally a double post because when I first looked at it one of those posts was a lot further down the list than this one so I presumed without checking that the one further down had been posted a lot earlier. As I count, Byott has asked exactly the same question i.e. "I have a 9 week old golden retriever puppy, what is your puppy menu?" 4 times. Twice, in this thread and the double post. Once, in "new puppy today" and once in "blood in puppies' stool". Ok, discounting the double post, that's three times. At the top of the forum it says in etiquette to do a search for your topic before posting as it has probably already been covered. This topic has been covered thousands of times but I know many people still post it anyway and that's fine. This can still be frustrating but it's part of being on a board where lots of new members come in and don't read the etiquette. However, when someone posts the same thing, themselves, three times - that is getting excessive and it DOES clog up the forum. I said that I never intended to be nasty. My first bringing up of it was not nasty at all, in fact byott was the first to react and start using GRR icons etc - not to mention pm-ing me and calling me childish and rude. I was quite prepared to let it die but you guys just keep rehashing it. With Byott having posted now 68 times, I would have thought that he had understood how to find an old thread and repost on the old thread. If he didn't, well that's a mistake, but so far he hasn't said that. My presumption is that all this (including rehashing this particular arguement) whiffs of attention seeking behaviour. If any of you think that I have the time or inclination to sit here and make trouble then think again. I do not post simply for the purpose of making trouble. I posted in the first place, because 4 repeats of the same question does not, to me, look like an innocent mistake - and I did post for what I believe is the good of the forum - to tell people not to keep asking the same things over and over! When experienced people bother to reply to your threads and yet you ask the same question again - the implication is that the advice you got the first time was somehow inadequate - which offends those of us who took the time to reply in the first place. Now let's get over it, shall we? BTW pewithers - you have come a long way!

I won't say it.... but it was very predictable. They really aren't that knowledgeable - you should have much more success at obedience! Don't forget to keep it calm!

I think pgm's point is that there is something instinctively superior to a dog that doesn't get external rewards. I used to think this too. Then I started training dogs for real life situations.

would you prefer accuracy of detection? I don't know the stats, I"m only presuming, but when a beagle comes up to me and sits because I HAD a banana peel in that bag a day ago - and he sniffed it out - that's pretty good to me. (And don't go saying that he shouldn't have alerted because it wasn't there any more. The dogs have to be trained to alert ot even the tiniest amount of scent.)

in the case of sniffer dogs, the objective of the training is NOT to train the dog to work independently of external rewards. The objective of the training is to get the dogs to sniff out illegal quarantine material as reliably as possible, period. - in other words, the objective is the BEHAVIOUR not the moral high ground of having a dog that works without food. If AQIS have found this reliability to be better with food than without "External rewards" then who cares? I mean really, when the dogs are extremely reliable, I think it takes a particular kind of arrogance to say that the dogs are immature and not well trained enough simply because they continue to use food. Go get a beagle, train it for quarantine, and get it to work for 4 hours a day for 10 years - and don't give it any external rewards. When it is as consistent, contented and reliable as an aqis beagle, then you have a point.

I didn't mean to be nasty - but there are three topics started by byott - I can believe that one was a double post - but the one back a couple of pages got quite a few good responses and pewithers gave out my puppy menu, as did a lot of other people - and I thought that maybe byott was trolling.

Hi Byott, I couldn't help but notice that you have recently asked this exact same question on three different occasions - starting your own new topic everytime. What was insufficient about the advice you got last time that you had to ask again - and again? This seems to me a little like the actions of a troll. In future it would be nice if you didn't post the same thing over and over especially given that you could have easily found answers to your queries by doing a search. This sort of thing really clogs the forum and it gets annoying answering the same questions - especially for the same person!

hi bommy, that's what I was trying to say with the shark cartilage, you need the whole stuff, not just the active ingredient (glucosamine.) This is a link to somewhere it can be bought. More can be found through googling. http://www.lifetimehealth.com.au/shark_cartilage.asp This is a short article about some of the effects of it: http://www.naturalfacts.com.au/sharkcart.html To be fair, this is the SA cancer fund's response to it, to give a balanced view. Perhaps there isn't any benefit to using it at all. Make up your own mind - I dont' really know. http://www.cancersa.org.au/i-cms?page=1.2.546.564 I hope you can wade through all of that!

ok, shitake is something I hadn't heard about. Care to share the list of benefits? Yes, I really ought to be feeding myself more vegies! My dogs definitely eat better than I do! Thanks for backing me up. Nice to know I'm not way off track. Would be nicer for molly to confirm this by putting on more weight next week!

GO MOLLY!! I had a hunch you know. Now, I do want to say this though. What you are doing with going off the drugs, and the other care things, like I suggested, please don't expect it to cure her - although I guess you never know. I wouldn't want to get your hopes up. I just wanted to say this because I strongly feel that the "cure it" attitude of some vets/medico's, while commendable and understandable, often results in more suffering for an animal which was never realistically going to fully recover anyway. What my goal would be, is to get her feeling good and feeling/looking happier so that she can actually enjoy her last few weeks/months with you, rather than spend it in pain and misery. this is an acheivable goal and it looks like it's working. My next two recommendations: -Definitely go get the raw organic honey- it really is natures wonder food. - Secondly, get her some shark cartilage powder/tablets (if you can.) They should be available at health food stores. This stuff is usually used to aid arthritis but studies have shown that shark cartilage powder actually restricts blood flow to tumerous cells - effectively preventing tumours from growing any bigger. Some humans have completely halted tumour progression through taking it. I would definitely give it a go - ask the health food store for a dosage rate - with any luck it could prolong her happy times with you. You want the whole cartilage powder though, not just the active ingredient. Also, are you packing the vegies into her diet? An old chinese herbalist who treated my grandma in the last stages of her cancer said that the cancer had progressed so rapidly because the diet she was following restricted her intake of greens and other coloured vegies. He recommended as many green leafy and yellow vegetables as could be stuffed down her throat! Preferably raw. In molly's case, I'd be going for the juice if possible. Spinach (esp baby spinach) is another powerhouse food. Asian greens and carrot juice is also excellent. Alfalfa is another great one and some of the herbs like basil have very powerful antioxidants. Are you giving her vitamin C? It would probably help - but only give it to her if it doesn't give her the runs. Goodness knows she doesn't need diarrhea to deal with too. Give her the highest dose she can tolerate. I hope some of these things continue to help her improve. Oh, and plenty of fresh filtered water of course! Of course, I'm not qualified in cancer therapy or anything like that - in fact I've never had a dog with cancer - all of what I'm describing here are from either my experiences with relatives with cancer and from general natural healing principles. Please keep us updated!

I seem to collect monorchid dogs All I can tell you is that after finding one of the "lost" testicles in the STOMACH lining!!!, that it was a BIG operation and I would NEVER do that on a dog under 6 months. I would actually leave it until fully grown except for that the undescended testicle can become cancerous. You wanna know how many monorchid dogs I've had? FOUR - and I'm getting another one on Friday. This is getting ridiculous.

I'm with natasha - seek out other breed owners . The only thing I agree with what dogtech has recommended is to limit the walking to reduce his overall stimulation level and to reduce the patting except when he is calm. The idea that there's a difference in the dog's mind between obedience and trick training is ridiculous. I also disagree with tying him up in the house. I think you'll find that when you let him off he'll go completely berko. Better to train him to sit still without forcing him to with a tie up. feeding him after you is no biggie = it certainly won't hurt.

only ever had one dog with problems with the anal glands. A course of antibiotics cleared it up - even though they didn't seem to be infected. the firmer the poos the better - within reason. Definitely lots of bones.

the idea of losing weight and or condition as the first step before improving isn't really considered in conventional medicine but it is well known in natural medicine. e.g - often after a change to a natural diet a dog will vomit, pass worms, drop coat and lose weight or appear sickly. We know that this will pass and the dog will come out of the other side of it feeling much better. I"m praying that this might be what's happening to molly, you can only hope. I'd also try supplementing her feed with some raw organic honey - great energy and mineral source and it has a lot of healing properties - it might just help her assimilate the energy from her diet better. btw - what treatment options had you decided on? did you take her off the drugs, or try the lumostine, or what? just that the weight loss may have to do with a change in treatment plan as well.

not to throw a spanner in the works bommy, but if she has improved to the extent that she's looking for her food, standing and eating well then I wouldn't be so worried about the weight loss. It is possible that it's a part of her natural healing. Also, if she had a full bladder and bowel at the last weigh in and had an empty one this time it's actually quite possible that she has put on weight in the body but lost it in the urine/faeces. Eg: 2 days apart weighings of my pointer pup. first one said he was 4.9kg, next one, 6.1kg. I knew he hadn't put that much on - but the second time after we got home he did a big wee and a poo too. Obviously this can also work in reverse. I would strongly consider that possibility, if otherwise she is seeming better. Take her for more weighings to be sure. She sounds like she's a lot better than when you pm'd me. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater yet. If your doing other treatment options then I wouldn't discount the possibility that she really is improving. Often they'll have a temporary downturn in weight before an upturn. I truly hope that is the case.

yeasty ears - that's interesting, thanks. I shall mull over that. Sadly, my cocker with yeasty ears never has any grains - neither does my cat - both have current yeast infections - and I think my toller is coming down with one too! Sadly, none of them have any cereals ever - so that's not something I can try to fix it!

Hey all, that diet PW posted is actually what I use. Yes, it is pre-grow your pups - it's from give your dog. One thing that PW either didn't understand or forgot to metion is that the chicken wing is the meal that is increased as the puppy grows. So basically, at 8 weeks, it only gets the one chicken wing per day, however as he gets bigger, you don't increase the amount fed in breaky or dinner until you are giving him lots more meaty bones at lunch. Usually by 9-10 weeks the pup gets a whole chicken frame at lunch and just the same amount of brekky and dinner. Also, where I say mince in the dinner - something I need to write in on my diet sheet is that I use minced meat and bones - ie. - lenard's pet mince - not just plain mince. The biggest meal is definitely the lunch bones meal though. Also, I know billinghurst has gone off the cereals idea - however I do think that there is still some merit in feeding a higher protein cereal such as oats for breakfast. (only for pups - I phase it out for adults) Firstly, oats are low GI but still have lots of carbs so it gives the pup his energy for the day, secondly, I do actually find the fibre beneficial for establishing regular toilet times, thirdly, I often have trouble keeping enough weight on my pups and the extra sugar from the carbs in oats helps with this. I think the reason I have trouble putting weight on them is because they expend so much energy eating their bones and playing with the other dogs. Not to mention training, which I start from day one.

Thanks Jeanne, it's much easier to read now!

thank you so much for the information about molly's condition. That was what I was wondering. Thank you - I'm so glad to hear that she has completed the neospora treatment and I hope you can make the decision about chemo with peace of mind.

rebanne, as I add it up, it's 150g vegies, to 650g chicken bones per day. That's about a 1/4 - I think that's fine. I would agree though that as he needs to eat more increase the wings (or go to lamb flaps etc) rather than increasing the vegies. i think rather than having a booklet of info, produce the booklet but have the diet sheet set out like a recipe, stuck on the front of it - so it's the first thing they see. I think if you give a SET recipe with actual amounts of specific substances you shoudl be fine recommending it to novices. Especially if you have a quick chat about the importance of sticking to the recipe exactly! However, I do agree that explaining general barf principles to novices and expecting them to come up with a decent diet is a bad idea. Jeanne, Just as an aside - and I don't mean to be rude - while your signature is lovely, it's very wide, which means that I have to scroll right in order to read all of your text. I don't know if others have this problem but is there any chance you could remove one of the photos in your signature or shrink the width so that it's the same width as everyone elses? Thanks! (Lovely photos by the way.)