River making friends with the alpacas 🥰
The alpacas were waiting outside our front door as River and I left for our walk this morning. She had already sniffed one and given a playbow earlier when she went out to the toilet but I didn’t manage to get that on camera.
It helps that the alpacas are so curious and not afraid.
With the temporary cooler temperatures we went bush walking this morning in the Milyeannup State forest that surrounds our home.
The two youngest (Benny and River) forgot all their lead training during the walk in all the excitement! Other than this short video Jett was happy to walk next to us in pack mode.
Needless to say, the two young troublemakers will be having increased lead training lessons this week!
Quick recall game to play at home or when out on the walk.
Throw some lower value food away from you and send your dog after it . Wait until your dog collects the food the TURNS TO LOOK AT YOU. Now call your recall command and have a high value food treat waiting to give them as soon as they reach you.
To make it more fun you can even take a few steps backwards creating more of a chase game .
On average, dogs need about 12 hours of sleep per day. Many will nap when there is nothing going on and have a longer sleep during the early afternoon.
This is important to factor in when managing energy particularly if dealing with unwanted behaviour issues.
When on a normal walk with your dog, add in short amounts of heel training. This is Chelsea from about a year ago. She put herself into the heel activity without me asking. This is because we practiced short bursts of heel regularly throughout our walks along with breaks to sniff and explore.
Next time you are out walking, see if you can get your dog to heel between two driveways or for 10 steps or whatever distance you can get. Then build on it. Before you know it, your dog could be choosing to walk in heel next to you.
Life on our property is definitely interesting and keeping us on our toes! An emu family have taken up residence with us over the last week, mainly hanging out with the alpacas in the paddock.
That was until the other day when they started doing full loops around the property including up near our house where the dogs hang out.
Jett was inside having a break from the younger two, River didn’t notice and Benny wasn’t sure what they were so left them alone 😊
Teaching our dogs to sit in the heel position is one of the first activities I teach in foundation obedience class. It’s a very useful position and one that can be used in a variety of situations in daily life. For example, before you start the walk, at every road crossing, when meeting new people or dogs etc.
Give it a try and let me know how you do 😊
Today’s training activity: place (down/stay) all at the same time.
I set the dog beds up (the place) with some distance from each other but still in the same general area. I also used a long line to tether each dog so that they could move off the place and the tether would stop them from going to the other dogs.
Using their normal dog biscuits, I rewarded them for remaining on the place.
The distraction level was still quite low as they have all practiced place before and they naturally relax around each other while I’m moving around (usually I’m doing work on the property while they laze around watching 🤣).
A couple of weeks ago I made a post looking for a dog friend for my client Chelsea. This morning Chelsea met Albie whose owner responded to the post.
They hit it off immediately and showed all of the signs of a great match. They were able to regulate themselves, reciprocated play and responded well to body language cues.
Here is a short clip of their play session 🥰
My client sent me this video of her dog Ollie calmly watching the lawns being mowed. This is a HUGE deal as Ollie used to bark at any noise outside the house. They have been working hard on his quiet cue, calming & settling and general desensitisation to noise outside. And what a great outcome for all their hard work! Well done 🎉
Dog to alpaca desensitisation update.
This video was taken earlier this week. We have been building up to having the dogs this close to the alpacas AND in this particular area of our home. Usually the alpacas are in the paddock and when they are up by the house the dogs are inside.
Every day the dogs see the alpacas on our walk and in the paddock, drinking and eating through a short fence which has been going great.
In the video you can see that the dogs are uncomfortable with their frozen body language and the tension. The leads however, were loose throughout the interaction. The difficulty in these situations is effectively managing the situation and environment. The alpacas had complete freedom of movement and surprisingly they wanted to come closer. We will continue to work on this as the alpacas do like to hang out around the house where the dogs are and we want to prevent any issues between them.
When you have a puppy and an older dog, their early interactions need to be carefully managed to assist them to build a happy and healthy relationship.
This is Jett with one of our foster puppies Bruno from 2023. We had both dogs on lead and were right there supervising. We did not think anything would go wrong, and we were there to help them navigate the situation.
Puppies can be challenging for older dogs to interact with and we wanted to support Jett and teach Bruno what to do. I ALWAYS use leads, supervision and structured interactions when introducing a new puppy to the home.
Note: Bruno came to us severely underweight and malnourished and at this point had low energy. He has long since fully recovered and is living his best life with his new family.
