kamuzz

Here is the thread I started on the same topic:

http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/266945-how-can-a-rescue-keep-a-dog-kenneled-for-8-years/

Would still like to know why their long term dogs are not advertised anywhere

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/australian-greyhounds-face-horrible-fate-in-macau-20131221-2zrxm.html

Oh wait, it gets better:

http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/yulin-dog-eating-festival-to-begin.php

And they also defined punishment as mamy things including 'verbal correction'. If I catch my dog peeing on the carpet I will yell OI and put them outside. But I don't 'punish' them.

^^ this

There are consequences if my dogs behave badly. e.g. if they wouldn't stop jumping up at visitors they would either go outside or in a crate. But is this punishment?

Last year I got coats for mine from Tuff Dog Coats - looks like they have had a name change to: alphadogcoats.com.au

They were very helpful.

Am brushing his teeth with a child's toothbrush, which is what the vet recommended. Will have to look out for the "on the finger" type.

Showdog, how do you find your Setter's teeth? I feel like I need an extra pair of hands. Trying to keep the dog still and get his mouth open and find his teeth under all that gum - end result is toothpaste on the outside of his mouth usually. The OH will not help. <sigh>

Dentastix were on special so OH bought a couple of boxes. They last - oh three seconds maybe. (And they are the right size for his weight.) He has also been getting a raw carrot in his dinner. That lasts a bit longer than the Dentastix.

Any update Juice - how has the last week been?

Deer antlers in this house are a saga. There are three dogs. There are three pieces of deer antler. Coda the GSD chews for 30 seconds and then loses interest. That leaves three pieces and two setters.

Mazda settles down with any one piece, quite happily. Veli wants the piece that Mazda has. Give Veli that piece. Mazda takes another piece and settles down again. Veli chews his piece for 3 seconds and then goes back to standing in front of Mazda looking mournful. Rinse and repeat....

One of our dogs cannot eat bones because he has allergy issues. And I find brushing his teeth really hard. (All that floppy gum just gets in the way.)

Do any of the dental treats actually work?

e.g. https://www.petcircle.com.au/dog/treats/dental-treats

I'd be willing to try a couple to see how they affect his tummy, if they would help his teeth.

With the 3 dogs we go through about 6 litres of water a day so putting something in the drinking water is not a viable option.

Thanks Scottsmum.

Not sure I want to try a 32kg dog on food that comes in 3kg bags!

kamuzz you might like to consider Meals For Mutts if you are seeking a quality grain free kibble in 20kg bags.

Meals For Mutts

Thanks RuralPug. Not sure I want to start paying $140 for a bag of dog food... I'm sure the price of dog food has gone up faster than other groceries.

It comes in 7kgs bags too,($30) they have it at our local Woolies.

I bought the smaller bag first just to be sure and its lasted a couple of weeks giving 2 cups a day with the mince.

Ah so their website is out of date. Thanks!

Thanks Scottsmum.

Not sure I want to try a 32kg dog on food that comes in 3kg bags!

Can someone please post a link to the VIP food?

Recently switched my old dog to ProPlan Senior and he's not that fussed on it. But my GSD does best on ProPlan Sensitive. Every time I've tried changing, we've come back to ProPlan. (He came from his breeder on ProPlan Breeder, maybe that has something to do with it.)

One of my dogs is showing the early signs of arthritis. The vet has suggested adding fish oil to his food. (He already gets a "joint" powder.)

What are the dosage guidelines for fish oils? He weighs around 30 kg and the vet was muttering about 1500 "something" of the active ingredient, I think.

Any brand recommendations?

It is more like he has been taught not to sit. Also possibly been taught to not follow the treat, but to stand and look pretty instead. To plant his feet but show expression.

I had some interesting experiences with a show horse once. I thought he as being a pain but was actually very well trained. It was just his training was hindering what I wanted to do.

So maybe work on unsticking his feet first.

Have you tried to get him to move his feet like I suggested? You need to unstick him first. Side ways movements will probably be easier.

Stick the lure right in his mouth and let him have a nibble on it before you start to try and move him. Something like a chicken neck might be a good lure for this. The second he moves any feet praise like crazy.

No, I haven't yet. So praising for anything is good? I won't make things worse?

If I compare our two ES, they are very different. We had no trouble teaching Mazda to sit or drop using luring. But Veli doesn't seem to move his body in response to a lure. When his head comes up, his back-end doesn't start to go down.

I think showdog has a valid point on the owners giving up! That's why in two years we haven't solved this problem. Hence this thread. I need help to learn a different way because what I know isn't working.

If you can't lure, and you can't apply pressure what is left?

Sacha was suggesting marker -based training. Maybe if we reward him for tiny increments, he'll get there eventually.

You don't need hands on :)

Personally I do a lot of shaping (ie wait for the behaviour and then reward it) but luring can be handy for dogs that have zero idea about offering behaviours. What I prefer to do, however, is lure with one hand, mark "yes" for the right behaviour and then reward with a treat from the OTHER hand. Gets them thinking a bit more. Try marking "yes" for what's called successive approximations - so think what sit looks like from a stand - head up? Yes, treat. Head up a bit higher? Yes, treat. Rump slightly drops? Yes, treat etc etc. Use AMAZING treats and lighten the mood - play before, during and after, turn it into a game. Make it easy to be successful.

1. Get his hips checked. A dog that reluctant to sit might well have a good reason for it.

2. Whatever you've been doing isn't working. You need to find another way to approach the issue. The first thing I'd do is go hands off. Luring usually works and I also wonder if technique is the problem. SLOW DOWN THE LURE. You want the dog's head to tilt back, not for him to do gopher impressions to get to it. Put the food just out of reach and back over the dog's head, not raise it higher. You want him to raise his muzzle up and back - that should put put pressure on him to drop his bum. Do not use a cue until the dog can reliably sit when lured.

3. You don't have to be in front of the dog for this. if he can stand beside you, you can lure from there.

4. You basically train a show dog to do something the way you'd train any other dog. Unless he's been corrected for sitting (which is possible), in which case it may take longer - if that is the case, find another place to do it and don't do it with the dog on lead. Point 3 may help.

Today we went to visit Sas :D And I think we can rule out his hips being the problem, as in HD or anything equally scary.

What we did learn:

- TSD's comments about dogs that have zero idea about offering behaviours are likely to be very helpful. (Sacha did suggest I look into clicker training.) Veli has no clue about lots of things. For example, Sacha was offering him treats from a jar. He never did look at her as a hint he wanted a treat or that he had worked out she was the source of the treats - just kept staring at the jar. And HW's comments about not standing in front or being on lead may help too. We think he has probably been corrected for sitting.

- His neck bends too far, almost as though he has a ewe neck. So when you lure him, he just keeps moving his head back. He can almost rest his head on his back!

- Sacha has poked and prodded him and found some areas of tightness around his hips, that have been treated. (She may come into this thread and update us with the technical terms.)

- His tail is weird. I think the term is "gay tail" except that Veli holds his tail up like a flag post, way past horizontal with the ground. After Sacha had finished there were a few moments when his tail was normal in its position. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I don't feel so bad now as he didn't behave perfectly for her, which would have made me feel like a right idiot :laugh:

setterspan, do you know if a ewe neck is a common conformation fault in Setters?

We've fostered a couple of greyhounds - three from memory - and all of them have insisted on lying on the lounge. My dogs aren't generally allowed on the furniture but we made an exception for the greys. It seemed to be the only place they were comfy. Is this a standard greyhound requirement?

(My dogs have GSD sized crates, but maybe they aren't big enough for a grey. 40 inch?)

This is one of the many reasons I love DOL - always plenty of helpful suggestions and advice.

Many people have suggested he isn't clicking with my methods, and I agree the owner is usually the problem. I speak fairly fluent German Shepherd, but my English Setter clearly isn't up to scratch. (For example, setterspan made the point never to use force with a setter)

One of the reasons he can't sit after two years is that I haven't pushed the point as I felt what I was doing wasn't helpful.

When possible I will get someone to video me trying to lure him and post it here for some more feedback.

Haredown, I also wondered about his hips. Even the best breeders can have an "off" pup. But the vet dismissed this because he does sometimes sit in his natural day to day life. She tried to get him to sit and basically said "Typical show dog - he has been taught NOT to sit". (Marilyn breeds working Springers for Quarantine and is generally pretty sensible.)

This came up at work today.

Apart from Steve - K9 Pro, who else is there in the Sydney Hills district that could be recommended for training?

i.e. not a full blown behavioural issue but more basic training.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. He can't drop - I cannot fathom out how to teach drop from a stand.

One of the reasons I want to teach sit is that "everyone" expects a dog to sit. Go to the vet - vet says sit. Veli would make a good "pets as therapy" dog, but sitting is mandatory. And so on.

How does he respond to other commands? Wags his tail and gets excited. He does sit naturally very occasionally so I don't think he has any issues. (The vet dismissed this as typical ex-show dog behaviour when I asked.)

Our English Setter is a failed show dog. He failed at showing after about 18 months. And even though we've had him for nearly two years, we still haven't managed to teach him to sit.

Applying pressure to his hindquarters makes him lock his knees.

Luring his head up produces a meerkat impersonation.

Making a fuss of him on the rare occasion when he happens to sit hasn't achieved anything.

He gets stressed if we use a two person approach and "collapse" him into a sit by pushing his knees in while the other person lures. (Bit hard to explain.)

Suggestions please?

Thought maybe I should come back with an update in case it helped someone else.

As a recap, we started Veli on steroids in Dec 2014 and at that time we were feeding him Royal Canin Gastro.

At the end of January we switched him to Royal Canin Hypo Allergenic and in hindsight he should have been on this one and not the Gastro.

We gradually reduced the dosage of steroids and he had his last dose mid April.

Then he continued on the Royal Canin Hypo Allergenic until July.

At this point we started gradually introducing ProPlan Sensitive.

He is now on 75% ProPlan and 25% Royal Canin and we plan to switch 100% to ProPlan by the end of this bag.

He has remained symptom free since February provided we are careful with his diet. Bones remain a problem unfortunately.

My English Setter injured the end of his tail and we tried for months to get it to heal. Eventually we had to amputate because the skin further up his tail was starting to be affected by the constant bandaging.

He looks a bit strange now because he carries his tail straight up like a flag pole but he seems happy enough.

Thinking of you Robbie dog. I have a feeling your mate Coda will be coming to join you soon.

Two of my dogs are on ProPlan Sensitive. Started a new bag for Sunday dinner. This morning Coda wouldn't finish his breakfast.

Came home to find both of them have the runs - badly. (The dog not on it is fine.)

Am wondering if they might have changed the formulation?