Doing well.....

Its been just over a month that Ben has been wearing his muzzle now. Things are going really well. He seems to be reacting much less to other dogs which is brilliant. Other dog owners are much more aware when they see him in his muzzle and put their dogs on lead or stop them from coming over. I have upgraded his muzzle recently to a Baskerville Ultra which is much less restrictive for him and he seems much happier in it.

We have discovered a new local walk around some lagoons and if we go around 4.30pm, we barely see anyone and its big open spaces which is really nice. Ben seems to really enjoy this route and its a good 1.5 hour so really tires him out. We have been going with his doggie friends, Robert the Westie and Lucy the Lab. Its great for him to have little group walks like this and because he knows these dogs well he is relaxed around them.

I am feeling very content in owning Ben, he is my world and managing him is getting easier and easier. He has taught me so much about dogs, about their body language in particular. I really would not be without him. I cannot take him to the dog park and sit at the cafe and have a coffee with my friends, but that does not matter to me anymore, it used to matter but I have accepted him and we have great walks together now. He is relaxed and kept stress free which is the most important thing to me.

Spring is just around the corner and I am looking forward to spending time with him on the garden with his flirt pole and the paddling pool :)

Walking with friends;

No Longer in Denial

Ben has been wearing his muzzle for 3 weeks now. And what a difference it has made. I think its made a difference in me, which has helped him. I feel so much more relaxed, even my friend commented that she felt more relaxed on one of our walks.

The other day we were in the woods, and two people with spaniels saw Ben and put their dogs on leads. I moved Ben to one side so they could go past and I said thank you to them. It felt good and Ben was calm and looked at me for his treats.

I so wish I had muzzled him as soon as he had injured that first dog all that time ago, Even though I have been careful with him, the muzzle gives me more confidence. I am not worrying that he could bite another dog, although he hasn't for well over a year, I guess the risk is always there. I don't think I wanted to admit this to myself.

On todays walk, he only tried to rub it off very briefly a few times. He seems more accepting of it when I put it on him when we arrive for a walk too. Even though we did not see one other dog this morning, I felt relaxed and really enjoyed the walk, just me and him. We played 'find it' with treats, as he has learnt to pick them up with his muzzle on now which is fab! I also got him a nobble ball which is a ball with bits sticking out of it which he can actually grab through his muzzle, he needs a bit more practice with this so it is a work in progress! He does love to play fetch so if you have a dog that loves this game but needs a muzzle, it is still possible!

I think its important to note that Ben could still cause damage to a dog, particularly a smaller one even with his muzzle on, so I still walk in quiet areas at quiet times, and if I see a dog then he is put on lead and we move to one side if we can or change direction. Just because he cannot bite, I don't want to over expose him to dogs, causing him to go over threshold, or make another dog scared of other dogs if he were to have a go at them.

To Muzzle or not to Muzzle

Last week, me and Ben met my friend with Robert, the Westie for an early morning walk. It is getting much lighter in the mornings now and we have noticed that more dog walkers are out with their dogs. On this particular walk, we saw a lady walking a spaniel, now spaniels are a breed that Ben never seems to like and he always reacts. I recalled Ben and put him on lead and we gave the owner and the spaniel a wide berth. Ben growled as the spaniel came too close. We walked past as fast as we could. Further on in the walk, where there is a hill leading to a corner Ben suddenly barked and dashed off, it turned out the spaniel was there again. Luckily it was too fast for Ben but I think he would have pinned it down if he had caught it. My heart dropped in my chest and I think my friends did too.

So this got me thinking whether I should just walk Ben on the street on his lead and not take him to off lead areas where other dogs could be. This made me feel sad as Ben enjoys his off lead walks having a sniff around and doing what dogs do basically! He also eats other dog poo on walks which drives me mad. Another consideration is the new dog law in the UK, which basically means that Ben could get reported just for making someone concerned that he could hurt there dog. I could not bare it if he was reported. I therefore made the decision to re-introduce the muzzle to Ben and have him wear it at all times on walks, on lead and off lead. I got some squeezy cheese from the supermarket which he loves and I have been giving him the cheese when he has the muzzle on. It was the third day today where he wore the muzzle and his first time off lead with it. He tried to rub it off at the beginning of the walk but he soon gave up with that and seemed to enjoy the walk sniffing around and running about with Robert (Westie). He kept coming to me for the cheese too which I was really pleased with.

There are a few other benefits to the muzzle, he cannot eat other dog poo, other dog owners are more wary of him and it helps me to feel more confident and relax more. When I feel guilty about him wearing it, I just remind myself how I would feel if he was reported to the council and was ordered to be kept on lead at all times.

Just to conclude, if you need to muzzle your dog, the best type of muzzle are the baskerville (which is what Ben is wearing in the picture) or the ultra baskerville. These muzzles ensure that the dog can pant and drink whilst wearing it. I have also cut a hole in the front of Ben's muzzle now, so I can give him treats.

A New Tactic

I generally walk Ben off lead on an old pit site local to me, its been turned into a country park but it is not officially open yet. It is very quiet early in the morning and during the day on week days so I go there quite often, plus you can easily see well ahead and change route to avoid other dogs if necessary. Last week I took Ben there and we were having a good walk, the sun was shining albeit a little chilly. A husky type dog appeared from no where, I couldn't see an owner anywhere. This is a breed that Ben always gets quite stressed around for some reason. The dog went right up to him sniffing him. Ben tensed up and his tail went all stiff, I know this means he is not happy in the situation.

I shouted his name and started running away from Ben and the other dog. Ben followed me straight away and forgot about the other dog. The other dog followed briefly but soon lost interest. I gave Ben some tasty treats I always carry with me and all was well. He did go slightly over threshold as he tensed up but it was much better than him growling/lunging. And in that situation there was not much else I could have done. I am taking this as a success though, because in the past he has gone from 0-60 within seconds! But I had time to think about the best thing to do to keep Ben as stress free as possible

I want to use this technique more often as I think it shows Ben he can just move away from the other dog if he feels worried, and come to me. He needs to have trust in me that I will protect him and I think doing this will help with that too.

Here is a picture of Ben posing at this country park;

Guest Blog Post - Robert Part 1

This is my first Guest Blog Post by my very good friend, Sarah. I am certain you will smile at this post, she is one funny lady!! 

Hello! I’m Sarah and I’m Claire’s first ‘guest blogger’ – how exciting (sort of). I’ve thought a lot about this post and what I wanted to do has changed so many times. But first – how do I and why do I know Claire and the lovely Ben?

Funnily enough we met on Facebook. I had noticed Claire’s name around on some of the popular dog groups and then one day I shared a post about a person’s puppy being attacked by two dogs in a local park. This is when Claire posted on the thread and messaged me asking for more details…..I didn’t have any unfortunately but we got chatting. It’s a funny old world. We got chatting about one of the most current and hotly debated topics in the dog world – diet! Dun Dun Duhhhh! But luckily, we were in agreement – Claire fed her dog a raw diet and I wanted to feed my soon-to-be puppy a raw diet. From this we got onto my concerns (already!) on leaving my puppy when I was at work. The plan was that my partner (who owns his own business) would eventually take said puppy to work with him once he had grown up a bit – but in the meantime he would be at home with me coming home at lunchtime. This didn’t seem enough to us and luckily Claire offered to help us – we’ve never looked back. We are now very firm friends and pretty much meet up at least every few days! We are officially CDL’s*!

But where am I going with this? My first lesson – everyone NEEDS a Claire if you are a first time dog/puppy owner. And why will become clear as I go on!

So, who is this little bundle of fluff who would be joining our small family? Of course, it was Robert, our then 9 week old West Highland White Terrier, weighing in at 1.9kg on arrival to our home and bringing a whole shake up of our sedate and easy world! Why a puppy? Why a Westie? Why ‘Robert’? I hear you say! Well:

·        We are first time dog owners and felt like a rescue – with their possibly difficult backgrounds would be too much for us. To be honest I’m not sure how prepared you can be for a puppy so we were; I totally admit it, pretty darned naïve.

·        Not sure why a Westie – I just always wanted one, when I pictured myself with a dog it was always a Westie and we wanted a small but hardy dog – this breed seemed to fit the bill.

·        His full name is actually Robert Barnaby Brown-Grant! But Robert, Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bobby, *?*!! – This was mainly because my partner thought it would be funny to call in a field…..

So we finally brought little Robert home and little did we or he know what we had in store in spite of the months (probably more like years) of preparation we had done! I could write on and on about our journey so far but I’m worried I’ve probably already lost some of you. So I will cover what we are (we really hope!) currently winning at in the great raising of a puppy experience and what we are now facing at the interesting age of 8 months old…..

So winning? We are winning at crate training! Hurrah – because it was HARD! So you buy a puppy, bring it home, put it in its crate when you go out and at night and dah-dah it is safe and happy…..well apparently not, not to begin with anyway! The first week was the hardest, and we were tricked on our first day home – we got little Robert home and immediately he found his crate and went to sleep in it – great success!

We decided to go with the approach of trying to make the crate the loveliest, most fun place to be and during the day Robert would jump in and out for treats galore happy as larry! It was only later when it was bed time did we realise…..he was put in and the crying started. The crying was horrible and doing my nut in – I’d be at work and convinced I could hear him crying…..

However so far, we hadn’t locked the crate door – he had free roam of the kitchen with paper down and the kitchen door closed. Mistake number 1 (and I realise some may not agree, that’s fine). It was only after a week that I turned to Claire (see you need one of her!) desperate for sleep and with my heart being torn and she said – close the crate door.

Close it? Really? Won’t that make it worse? I was desperate, so I did it, and ok we had some instances in the future of some more howls but on the whole he was so much better. She also recommended covering the crate and getting up in the middle of the night for toileting – I started with twice a night (there is a little more to this technique but for the reason of not blabbing on – you can contact Claire and she will point you to the resources). This slowly reduced to once a night and later and later and eventually not at all. We have had one wee accident (no no.2’s) in his crate EVER. I think that is pretty remarkable**. We also leave Robert in his crate during the day, this was started super gradually from a few minutes to around a max of 3-4 hours – he found it tough at the very beginning but now he’s totally happy for a few hours to snooze in his crate and/or have his fave tasty kong in there.

So now, he loves his crate. He takes himself there during the day for sleeps and at bed time often takes himself off…..its brilliant. I feel justified gloating because it has been really hard and I really struggled – there have been slip ups along the way and I’m not sure what I would have done without Claire’s reassurance and advice (thanks mate J) but now we’re sailing smooth its fab :D!

As a somewhat symptom of winning at crate training we are also winning at house training! Hurrah! And at first, yes it was hard and messy. But we have an old carpet and got him at the beginning of summer – we knew what to expect. We lifted and popped him outside all the time, after playing, eating, sleeping and every 20 mins in between. We rewarded hugely for doing it outside and ignored when he did it inside. He only did no. 2’s inside a few times before he ‘got it’. We also attached a word/phrase which has been really helpful and I recommend any new puppy owners to do the same as he can pretty much toilet on cue now- very handy when in a rush! We say ‘hurry ups’ if you are interested J. As I said, the crate helped a lot because he didn’t want to ‘go’ in his den. So, it was a case of open the crate and go outside STRAIGHT AWAY – it worked! Finally we have also taught Robert to let us know he wants to go out by ringing a bell at the back door……marvellous…..now he’s an adolescent its super fun because he rings it when he’s bored too ;) hey no one is perfect!

Those are our biggest ‘winning’ events in the last 6 months – to achieve those has made life so much easier! But on top we have managed to pretty much curb the puppy biting, he has lots of doggy friends and he knows a bunch of tricks (sit, down, turn both ways, speak, paw, high five, touch, go to the mat, up - to name a few!!). We clicker train Robert and he’s responded to it really easily! He’s now so easy to live with, everyone has their crappy days but having Robert in our family has enriched our lives tenfold.

So at this moment in time we’re getting to the really good stuff, Robert is now 8 months old. His ‘boys’ have well and truly made themselves known…….he’s distracted, mischievous and feisty. Other things that have changed are that I am now working from home which is blissful for Robert and my partner is also based at home. So how have our lives changed now that we don’t have a ‘puppy puppy’ anymore but an ‘adolescent puppy’? Well lots….and I hope you will be here for the next installment to read NOT how we are losing (far too negative) but how we are really really trying hard on some stuff!

Thanks to all you lovely Ben followers – speak soon J

Sarah and Robert J

*Crazy Dog Ladies!

**I felt it only fair to add that we did do the ‘tough love’ approach to the crate; I know not all people agree with this. We left him to cry, it was never for hours, but we did leave him. This is a whole different debate that I won’t get into – I understand all viewpoints. It worked for us.

The Dog Magnet

I have recently been using chopped up sausage and cheese on walks which is Ben's high value treat when we come across other dogs. It really focuses him on me after he has looked at the other dog. Dog = Cheesy Sausage! Unfortunately this causes me to attract dogs who also want some cheesy sausage action. Therefore my tool for helping Ben is sometimes the thing that doesn't help him at all because it brings unfamiliar dogs over to me. which can cause Ben to react. This really emphasizes how important it is for owners to put their dogs on leads when they see another dog on lead. I am trying to be much more proactive on walks because of this, I will change direction or move as far away as I can to one side or hide behind something. 

An example of me turning into a dog magnet happened last week. I was walking with my friend and her two labs who Ben gets on with. We encountered a lady with a Dalmatian and a Spaniel, both dogs Ben has met before and has been fine with, even playing with the Dalmatian. I still got the cheesy sausage out to keep Ben focused. The Dalmatian launched at my treat bag spilling all of the treats all over the ground. So all five dogs were trying to get the treats off the floor. The Dalmatian then went back for the treat bag still in my hand and his tooth slices my finger, yes ouch. Blood is pouring and I am crying out in pain (I am a wimp with a low pain threshold!). The owner was VERY apologetic and clearly is embarrassed. I tell her it's okay and we carry on walking. I had a tetanus injection that day and have been on antibiotics all week as a precautionary measure. 

It is really hard to be proactive on the spot sometimes, but I need to get in the habit of ensuring Ben doesn't have any negative encounters with other dogs. He is better off his lead, but with certain dogs I would rather put him on lead and do my best to avoid. I have had owners say to me "its okay if he has a bit of a go, my dog will move away". This is not the point though, I do not want Ben to have to feel like he needs to warn another dog away, its not good for his stress levels. 

I just remembered, it was Ben's 3rd birthday last week and I did not even do a happy birthday Ben blog post...he was spoilt on the day though! Here he is on a frosty walk this morning. 

Continued Improvement

Happy new year to you all! Its been a busy month since I last wrote on here which was the 7th December *cringes*. Me, hubby and Ben went away for Christmas and it was great, although I did get a little disheartened as Ben was quite reactive to other dogs and he didn't settle well during the night. I came to the conclusion that we were in a new place, different smells and sounds that contributed to him perhaps being more tense than usual. The day after we came back I arranged to walk with his best buddy Ripley, the Labrador, so he could have some positive time with another dog.

So, since the holiday I have discovered that Ben's favourite high value treat is hot dog chopped up with little bits of cheese. He goes mad for it, if there is a dog in the vicinity he does not care! He just wants that cheesy hot dog! I have been using this to my advantage with great results. He looks at the other dog then looks at me for his fav tit bit, no reaction, no stress. I think having this top treat has relaxed me more as well which sounds slightly daft!

So enough about cheese and hot dogs. Me and Ben have been doing early walks with my friend and her Westie, Robert. This has meant that Ben's walks have been quiet and relaxed. And when we have encountered another dog, he has remained below threshold and calm. I have enjoyed walking as the morning gets light and seeing the sun rise! Unless its raining of course.

I felt like we had a really big milestone yesterday. We went by the river, and Ben loves to swim and fetch his ball. Its handy as when dogs appear I can throw the ball far in and he just jumps in after it and its highly unlikely the other dog is going to dive in after him. Another Labrador appeared yesterday and was very interested in my friends treats, Ben came out of the water and didn't even bat an eyelid. I reassured him and gave him some treats and continued to play fetch. Then we came across an Akita, he has always reacted to this breed. But yesterday, no reaction just looking at me, bless him!

So things are going well, I will keep you posted...but for now a few pictures from the snowy walk Ben had with his Labrador pals.

Pictures taken by LiveLoveLabs Photography

https://www.facebook.com/livelovelabsphotography?fref=ts