Staranais

Oooh Boxagirl, a broad jump! We don't have one at our local agility club to practice on - so last time I introduced my dog to one he just looked at it funny and casually strolled right over top of it. Practice at home would be good... How did you make it?

Thanks Erny, I laughed and nearly spilt my coffee into my computer keyboard! I've already checked out ebay - there are some nylon tunnels for $20US, but you're right that they look a little flimsy. Also some 'real' ones for about $100US, unfortunately way out of my budget. Perhaps I'll have to go check out my local builders sometimes soon. Though the next project round here is going to be the tyre jump...

Thanks for the tunnel ideas, people. Airdogs looks great, but it's a little out of my budget at the moment. I'll check out the duct heating - any idea where I'd get this from Erny? And if all else fails, I'll invest in a cardboard box. I was careful to secure them so if Monsta fell the sticks would fall too, and he shouldn't injure himself. Though to be frank, I doubt he'd care - he half punctured his eyeball once, and just wanted to keep playing retrieve. My super staff sometimes makes me wonder where "game" ends and "stoooopid" begins...

I've made weave polls with garden stakes. And made jumps with bricks and garden stakes. (Notice a theme here?) I'd love hints on how to make a cheap tunnel though - anyone done this?

Aaah thanks K9force, I'll try your first suggestion. For the second problem, I've already found my own solution - salted peanuts!

OK, dumb question for you treat-spitting people, from someone who wasn't at the seminar... If you're teaching competition heeling, and rewarding the dog by spitting treats at him while he's in heel position, he's going to be focusing on your face, right? But since the dog is trying to keep your face in view while he's heeling, doesn't that mean he'll have a tendancy to surge ahead? I'm thinking specifically of a short dog like mine. Normally when I heel him, he watches my knees since they're right at his height! I doubt he could see my face from regular heel position, unless I turned my head to look at him. Obviously spitting for heeling works or you wouldn't all be doing it - so what am I missing? Also, what kinds of things are people spitting at their dogs? I normally reward my boy with cubes of old, smelly luncheon or sausage - no way I'm putting them anywhere near my mouth!

Woohoo, a breakthrough! I got some smelly sausage, rubbed it over a small part of the sofa cover so it was really obvious where the smell was, and then hid the sausage cube under the smelly part of the cover so he couldn't actually see it. And once I directed him to the area the cube was in and said "find it!", he snuffled round till he found it! I'm hoping that after a while of doing this, once he truly understands that "find it" means "use your nose!", I can gradually make the task harder and harder. Now I have a sofa that smells of sausage, and a dog that has possibly had a nasal breakthrough? ;)

Thanks Eddyanne, I'll give it a go.

Care to tell us how you go with it, Tilly? It sounds interesting. Hmmm. Just taken the dog to the lounge, made him wait outside the room, and hid some of his smelly luncheon clicker treats on the paisley mattress (even I found it hard to see them on there!) When I invited him in and said "find it!" he took ages to find them. But I was watching closely, and he didn't seem to really be systematically SNIFFING for them, just running round excitedly looking. So I guess when he gets excited, he just doesn't think to use his nose to find things? So perhaps he has to be taught to sniff? I thought dogs came knowing how to use their noses. Does anyone know any nose-work games that would be suitable for absolute beginners like us?

Woah Myszka! I hope you mean dogs becoming DEAF? :D Or else Steve is even cleverer than you thought.

This luncheon was pretty high - even I could smell it. I could try something even smellier though, perhaps blue cheese or something. So do you reckon he just needs to be taught to use his nose, instead of having a bad sense of smell?

Yeah, I do that too - but he tends to leave half the food there, even if it's food he really loves, I guess he just can't find it? I guess I'm just confused since I've always been told that all dogs have a great sense of smell. If I can smell the yummy smelly luncheon, why can't Monsta?

Tilly's thread on tracking just got me thinking. Do you generally have to teach a dog to use his nose, or are most dogs just born "nasally talented"? The reason I'm asking is that my dog's nasal abilities are terrible. If I drop a piece of smelly luncheon on the kitchen floor, turn the lights down so he can't immediately see it, then let him into the room he will take at least 20 seconds to find it. Sometimes he even steps on it before he realises it's there! My uncle's beagle, on the other hand, will walk directly over to where the food is whenever she enters a room - even if it's hidden out of sight. Is having a poor sense of smell normal for certain breeds of dog? Or is my dog just weird?

Thanks GlenC and toilet duck.

Thanks Clickingmad, I'll try it!

OK - suggestions please! I've tried to teach Monsta to beg this weekend. But when I lure him with a treat, instead of going into a "beg" position he jumps straight from a sit to standing straight up on his hind legs. Like he's trying to dance. It's kind of cute, but not what I'm after right now! Has anyone else encountered this? How did you teach your dog that beg means bum on the ground?

M-rose, how's Buster doing?

I can't help with the potty training question, but my suggestion for the next thing to teach your dog is the recall. In my opinion there's nothing more important for your dog's safety than having a reliable recall.

Prong collar and lead, except at obedience school where it's a check chain and leash. He's always been quite good at walking on a loosh leash, but since I started using the prong he's been great. And strangely enough, walking on the prong most of the time seems to have improved his loose leash walking on other types of collars as well.

Just checking - you were walking him on a leash, weren't you? What kind of collar was he wearing? I'm just wondering how he managed to get over to the fence with you on the other end of the leash (he looks big from the avatar, but not huge enough to pull you round!) But if you have trouble controlling him on a regular collar, perhaps try an easywalk harness, halti or prong collar? Well done with the breakthrough though. Hope all the hard work pays off.

That's awesome news M-rose. Now you just need to practice using "focus" in different places and different situations. Hopefully at some point he'll be able to focus on you even when other dogs are nearby, because he knows that he'll get a great treat for it. It's a shame that you need to go past the other dogs to get out of your street, because Erny's right. When desensitising your dog it's best to keep your dog in situations he can handle, so he doesn't get more practice at being aggressive. Hey Kavik, I too have given up on making my dog greet strange dogs on lead, he just finds it too challenging and stressful. I figure if he ignores them, that's about as much as I can reasonably ask for - and it's perfectly sufficient for obedience and agility anyway.

Aaah, I misunderstood. Sorry. So when you say he acts excited, what exactly do you mean? If you were to let him off his leash would he go play with the other dogs, or go seriously attack them, or run in the opposite direction? As an aside - if you can't get to a proper trainer, I'd recommend you borrow or buy Patricia McConnell's "Feisty Fido". Really useful.

So, this is what I'm hearing: 1. Your dog can sit calmly when he sees dogs on the other side of the fence. 2. But he won't do that when other dogs are close by to him. Sounds to me like you need to find your dogs "critical distance" - the distance that he can tolerate dogs at and still focus on you - and then work to decrease this distance. How to do this? I assume you've already taught your dog the "focus" or "watch me" command? So the next step is to start setting up situations when you know you will meet other dogs, and reward your dog for focusing on you. Don't push your dog too fast - if he starts to growl and bristle at the other dogs, you're way too close. Work at the distance that makes your dog slightly uneasy, but not actively aggressive. You're asking your dog to do a difficult thing, so you need to make it really worth your dog's while to focus on you. Make sure your rewards are great. My dog will do just about anything for a tennis ball, and his behaviour around other dogs really improved as soon as he figured out that calmly focusing on me in the presence of other dogs invariably earned a game of chase. What you are working towards is a dog who will focus on you on command, even if there are other dogs walking close by, because he knows paying attention to you will bring far greater rewards than fighting will. Hope that helped. (In case you didn't pick it up, I have a similar problem with my dog - he's quite dog aggressive, and I'd never ever let him off leash to play with strange dogs. But because I have taught him to give me his full attention on command, I can still take him to our obedience school and do some off leash agility work safely.)

Yup, gentle leader, halti, snoot loop - they're all the same thing, just marketed under different names.

Hi Jen, I also have a Staffy, but I won't use a halti on him. Here's the three reasons why not... 1. When I tried one on him, he absolutely hated it. He cried and pawed his face to get it off. I've since found out that many dogs don't enjoy wearing their halti. It is possible to train a dog to accept a halti, but to be honest I didn't have the heart to do that to my dog. I want walks to be fun! 2. A halti doesn't actually teach your dog not to pull - it will stop him pulling while the halti is on, but if you take the halti off, the dog still pulls. Since I would like to eventually do obedience with my dog, I chose to teach loose lead walking with clicker training coupled with a prong collar instead. This is working really well for us. 3. My Staffie is a lunger, not a steady puller. I've heard horror stories about dogs injuring their spines by suddenly lunging and getting their neck jerked round by the levering action of the halti. I don't know if these are true or just rumours, but I didn't want to risk it for Monsta. Like everyone's said, you should use what works for you and your dog. By all means try a halti on your dog and see if it's right for you. I just posted because I thougt you might like to hear the "other side of the story" before you ran out and bought one!