Category Archives: Dogs

Training with a Long Line

Tilly on a long lineThe beginning of the line

Many years ago, we attended a number of workshops for reactive and aggressive dogs. Throughout the workshops, long lines were being used as training aids and at that time, they were hard to come by. We realised there was an unmet need, so began making those long lines and hence the name of our company, Training Lines.

We used climbing rope to make the original ones, and we are still using our prototypes today!

The use of a long line has been brought home to us again just recently because Tilly has been on restricted exercise following her elbow arthroscopy. We have also used the same long line in the not too distant past when Tracking with Toby.

Scent Work with Toby

In short, they are useful tools, training tools, and not to be confused with long leads or extending leads.

We prefer to use them with a harness rather than a collar and advise you should always, no matter what the weather, wear gloves. Rope burns are painful.

Why use a long line?

Well, although they could be used as a long lead, they take some management to prevent both yourself and your dog from becoming hopelessly entangled.

Managing a long line

It’s easy to get tangled up, especially when other dogs are around

They are useful for young dogs to give them a sense of freedom while still retaining that all-important control, or for teaching a recall. They are also essential in BAT (behaviour adjustment training) in reactive dogs and provide a physical connection to your dog as a back-up for your mental connection.

And of course, there are various ones for use in Scent Work or Tracking.

Our preference is no handle. A dog can get up a good turn of speed on a long line, and the last thing you want is a dislocated wrist. It can help to tie knots near the end so that you know when you are running out of rope.

Before buying a long line, you should decide first of all what you want to use it for and then how long you want it. As mentioned above, the lines can be very unwieldy if too long.

Although we no longer make them ourselves, they are now far easier to obtain and here is our pick of the ones available.

CLIX Puppy House Line

Puppy House Line

Puppy House Line

The Clix Puppy House Line is a lightweight lead that can be used in the house to interrupt a dog’s undesirable behaviours without the need for confrontation or misunderstanding. 

Preventing undesirable behaviour is always more effective than stopping it once it has started because your dog will not get a chance to find out how much fun it is to be ‘naughty’.  You do have to think ahead and predict what your dog might do next.

The house line helps you to get to your dog before he makes a mistake. If your dog is about to do something undesirable, pick up or step on the house line to restrain him.  Distract him from what he was about to do by calling him, encourage him to show the behaviour that you want instead and then praise and reward him for getting it right.

Can be used to stop jumping up, stealing, chewing, digging, chasing, play biting, pestering other dogs in the household, climbing onto furniture or running out through an open door.

It should never be left on an unattended dog.

Company of Animals Lightweight Recall Line

A lightweight recall line

Lightweight Recall Line

The Clix Lightweight Recall Training Line is ideal for puppies and young dogs as it is made from an ultra-light yet durable fabric. The recall line allows the dog to be seemingly free and yet remain under control, combining security with freedom. An essential tool for recall training and ideal for controlled socialisation of puppies and aggressive dogs.

The perfect training tool for outings in a public place and the soft padded webbing makes the recall line comfortable to hold.

Clix Recall Line

Recall Training line

Recall Training Line

As with the lightweight version, the Clix Recall Training Line allows the dog a feeling of freedom while ensuring that you have control. For teaching a reliable recall, the long line is an excellent proofing tool for testing your dog’s proficiency and doing it safely.

Two lengths are available (5m, 16 ft 8 inches, & 10m, 33 ft 4 inches).

Trixie Tracking Lines

Tracking Lines: Tracking Line with Ball (cord), Tracking Line (cord), Tracking Lead (webbing)

Tracking Lines

The Trixie Tracking Lines come in several different varieties and can be a powerful communication tool between the dog and handler. With proper use, the communication flows back and forth all the time during the track. A handler’s primary job is to keep the line from distracting the dog, keep it out of the dog’s way and do not let it get tangled. The correct tension on the line will keep it straight in the air from the dog’s harness to your hand.

Tracking leads can be used for scent work or as a long line for recall training. They come in various lengths and styles.

PVC Coated Tracking Lines

Tracking leash with a PVC coating or integrated shock absorber

The Trixie Easy Life Tracking Leashes are available with a PVC coating which is resilient and durable, and easy to wipe clean. Available in various lengths, they offer freedom of movement while training or walking, and are also ideal for tracking or searching.

You can even get one with an integrated shock absorber that helps to cushion any sudden pulling making it kinder on you and your dog.

Excellent for tracking, scent work and distance or recall training.

Lining yourself up for success

We hope that gives you an insight into why, if used correctly, a long line is such a valuable training aid and although we haven’t gone into detail on how best to use them, a lot of the products come with basic instructions which are well worth reading before getting started. Alternatively, it’s worth doing some research online before deciding which one is best for you and your dog.

Tilly in her cone of shame

Beat the Boredom

Tilly after her elbow arthroscopy

Her legs must be chilly?

Cage Rest and Cone?

What do you do when you’ve got a sick or injured pet? What if they’re on cage rest? What if they are doomed to wear the cone of shame? We have been faced with this problem for weeks now.

But it’s not only that, what if they’re home alone or the weather is bad? How do you entertain a bored pet?

Exercise their brain!

For a dog on cage rest as our Tilly was after her elbow arthroscopy, wearing a cone to protect her stitches, life was very miserable and we feared for her mental wellbeing. Not only that but two weeks into her confinement, her spay scar became infected, so she was double coned and confined for a further two weeks.

Tricks and Tips

How did we cope? Well, we had two large dog crates which were situated in the main parts of the house so that wherever we were, she could be nearby. She had a soft toy with her at all times, but that had to be operated on to remove the squeakers. Toby hates squeakers and she was driving him crazy!

A stuffed KONG

A well-stuffed KONG always proves popular!

Due to the amount of space available, we decided to use smaller treat toys to entertain her. She couldn’t have coped with the puzzle toys in such a restricted environment. Our go-to toy for most occasions is the KONG. Stuffed to the gills with tasty treats, what dog could resist? And you can always freeze it for longer-lasting play. You simply can’t go wrong with a KONG!

Our second choice was the Starmark Treat Ringer Orb which proved such a big hit with Toby as a pup.

Treat Ringer Orb

The challenging Treat Ringer Orb

At first, Tilly found this difficult and it lay untouched in her crate, but by removing a treat and letting her get a taste of it, she was motivated to try for herself and eventually got the hang of it. Now it’s one of her favourite evening challenges.

Thirdly was an old favourite, the Lotus Ball. This is a very simple toy and probably better suited to retrieving, but for Tilly, it contained another little treat for her to extract and keep her mind active. To make it more appealing, we boosted it up with a jackpot treat, Davies Puffed Jerky. Our dogs go wild for it.

Lotus Ball and Puffed Jerky

Lotus Ball and Puffed Jerky

Puzzle Toys

If your dog is not restricted space-wise, there are numerous puzzle toys to keep them entertained. If you haven’t tried one before it’s best to start with something straightforward as you will find they are easily discouraged if they can’t get the hang of it. A great starter toy is the Nina Ottosson Dog Smart.

Nina Ottosson Dog Smart

Nina Ottosson Dog Smart

Another simple toy is the Lick n Snack Platter which gives them an instant win, plus licking can have a calming effect on your dog. Great as a feeding bowl, too.

Moving on you then can progress to the K9 Pursuits Interactive IQ Game Watson, and bring out the super-sleuth in your dog. There is the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick Interactive Toy, which has 3 different treat-feeding features and is a long time favourite. Or why not try the Dogit Mind Games Interactive Dog Toy that challenges both their physical and mental abilities. The K9 Pursuits Multi Maze is a 2-in-1 anti-gobble slow feeder and interactive game! The best of both worlds with its three interchangeable centrepieces all offering a different challenge!

Interactive Games

There are games to suit all levels: from top left, K9 Pursuits Interactive IQ Game Watson, Trixie Lick n Snack Platter, middle, K9 Pursuits Multi Maze Slow Feeder, bottom left, Dogit Mind Games Interactive Dog Toy and the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick Interactive Toy

Or your dog may prefer soft toys, so why not make these interactive too? If they’re not treat motivated but love a squeak, what about the Puzzle Plush Hide A Squirrel. Three furry gremlins to remove from their tree trunk nest.

Alternatively, there is the Sniffing Blanket Strategy Game, which has multiple hiding places for treats and small toys. Excellent for the keen forager.

Interactive Soft Toys

Some dogs prefer soft toys like the Puzzle Plush Hide a Squirrel or the Sniffing Blanket Strategy Game

You may find something above that you think is suitable for your dog but if not we have plenty more to choose from in our Interactive Play section or even our Treat-Dispensing Toys. And don’t forget the all-important Dog Treats to accompany your strategy games.

Keeping Cats Occupied

Cat in crateIf your cat is confined to a crate for any reason here are some tips and tricks:

  • Keep the crate super clean, changing water and blankets regularly.
  • Ensure the crate is in an area in the house where the family spends most of their time to prevent loneliness and boredom.
  • Keep some toys in the crate, perhaps infused with catnip, or dangling through the bars for entertainment. Swap the toys from time to time to give your cat something new to play with.
  • Have a regular routine so your cat knows what to expect and when. At night half cover the outside of the crate with a blanket.
  • Talk to your cat or play music or the TV so there is some background noise.
  • A cat pheromone spray may also help to calm and de-stress anxious cats.
Cat Enrichment Toys

From left to right Snack Mouse Treat Dispensing Toy for Cats, FroliCat CHEESE Automatic Cat Teaser, Cat Activity Fun Board Interactive Toy

There are a wide variety of enrichment toys available to keep your feline active and prevent boredom. There are self-play toys such as the FroliCat CHEESE Automatic Cat Teaser. Useful when they are home alone.

Next, there are the food puzzle toys that encourage foraging and make them work for their treats with the Cat Activity Fun Board Interactive Toy being one good example, and the Snack Mouse Treat Dispensing Toy for Cats, another. Your cat will learn to manipulate the toy to release the food.

Then there are interactive toys that are designed to strengthen the bond between you and your cat. The Cat Activity Fun Circle Interactive Toy is a game you can enjoy together, which is also suitable for older or sick pets and provides different activities on two different sides.

Take a look at our full range of Cat Strategy Games to find something to keep your kitty fully engaged.

So, do you know if your cat is bored? Take a look at this excellent article, Is Your Cat Bored? 10 Ways to Prevent Boredom, which explains how you can tell and provides some interesting ideas for enriching your cat’s environment.

Horses Need Enrichment Too!

Likit Equine Boredom Breaker

The Likit Boredom Breaker for Horses with Likit Refills in 4 delicious flavours

In a 24-hour period, a lot of equines will only have a few hours of mental and physical human engagement so boredom vices can set in. Enrichment toys can provide welcome relief for them and hung in the stable, the Likit Boredom Buster will do just that. Developed to provide environmental enrichment, this challenging stable toy is designed to get horses to work for their reward and there are four scrumptious Likit Treat flavours to choose from (available separately).

Enrichment provides a way to stimulate a horse’s natural instincts and is crucial to their overall wellbeing. By engaging these instincts, they can become healthier, happier equines.

Stock up and be prepared

In summary, ensure that your pets have a well-stocked chest with a wide variety of toys and games for both physical and mental stimulation. You can’t make every minute of your pet’s life exciting, but you can go a long way to keep their boredom at bay!

We wish you a Wheely Good Christmas

A huge thank you to all our valued customers

As the year draws to a close, we wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your valued custom and hope that in the coming year we will continue to be of service to you and your very special pets.

As dog owner ourselves, we are always striving to find new and innovative products and appreciate the importance of mental exercise with mind-engaging activities such as enrichment puzzles, treat toys, and also learning new skills and tricks.

From all of us to all of you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

And now some pawsitive thoughts from our highly skilled Testing Team

Daisy

Daisy: These wheels are made for rolling!

Archie

Archie: It’s hard being so handsome, but someone has to do it!

Jack

Jack: I might be outnumbered but I can outrun them. Border Collie’s Rule, OK!

Toby

Toby: I’ve been Naughty and Nice!

Tilly

Tilly: Whereas I’ve just been Naughty!

The Great British Dog Walk

The daily dog walk is sadly in decline

As dog owners, one of our main responsibilities is the daily dog walk. Let’s face it, when the weather is rough, or we fancy another hour in bed, or there’s something good on the telly, we often search for an excuse NOT to walk the dog. In fact, those are some of the top reasons we use as well as a whole host of others. Now Forthglade have launched a campaign to reinstate The Great British Dog Walk and help you re-discover the joy of walking. Not only is it good for our pets, it’s good for us too, and a good walk can affect our health, wellbeing and happiness.

What with the obesity crisis, which affects not only humans, but our pets as well a daily walk could be just what we all need to get us back on track.

But before we all rush out and get started, another factor we may want to consider, especially in the colder weather is the ‘warm-up’, which can be important if your daily walk involves chasing a ball, flying disc, or in our case, the Puller Exercise Toy for Dogs. It had never occurred to us before. Our dogs can be seen hurtling out of the front door, across the yard and into the field in hot pursuit of their favourite purple toy! However, recently we came across an article on Warm-up Exercises for your Dog. Humans are aware that they need to warm up their muscles before exercise but for some reason, we hadn’t thought about it for our dogs.

It doesn’t have to be a long, complicated process, just a few minutes of some basic moves will make all the difference and could prevent injury. It also offers a fabulous opportunity to bond with a bit of training. Do some circles to the left and right, have your dog weave through your legs, teach them a play bow.

Similarly, towards the end of your exercise, make sure that you calm things down and give your dog time to cool off before he returns to the car or indoors.

So now is the perfect time to think a little differently about that daily chore, turn it into a fun experience that is a pleasure for both you and your dog. There are some great motivators on the Forthglade site and also experts on hand to help you along the way.

Take up the six-week dog walk challenge and fall in love with that daily walk all over again, but more importantly, make a dog happy today and every day!

 

Daisy rides again!

Daisy does a wheelie…

It’s been a huge learning curve for us this past month, and for Daisy too, probably. Last month she was a 4-wheel drive this month only a 2-wheel drive. Somewhere along the line she’s lost the use of her back legs, but only on dry land.

As soon as we realised she was suffering from degenerative myelopathy we visited a local dog hydro centre where we were lucky enough to find a trained physio who did everything she possibly could to help us.

As we’ve mentioned before, she had a full exercise programme designed to keep her back legs working, and she swam or walked on the underwater treadmill. All this built up the muscles in her back legs, so they are very strong. Her problem is that she can’t control them.

Earlier this month we realised that her days walking unaided were over and so tried her in the wheels that we had ready for her. She wasn’t at all keen and just stood still until we hooked her back legs up behind her in the stirrups. That got her moving, but it also gave us another problem.

With her legs so strong, she paddled when she walked in the cart, rather like when she was swimming. This was causing the stirrups to rub on her legs making them sore and bleeding. We began bandaging her legs before taking her out, but with the constant friction, they weren’t healing.

While looking for a solution, we temporarily reverted to the belly band, made from an old sweatshirt. We first used this with Blitz, who also had this horrible disease.

She loved it and took to it immediately, but for us it was exhausting.

The next logical step was to combine the wheels with the belly band. In order to do so, the whole cart had to be re-engineered with new aluminium rods!

We finally managed to come up with a solution that gave her (and us) the best of both worlds, and although it may not look very elegant, she is one happy bunny again. It’s given her back her freedom and independence.

Here she goes…

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All grown up

Tilly leaves home…

It seems like only yesterday we bought home that little bundle of fluff and sharp teeth but already our little girl has grown up. This month saw the start of her first season, and with two entire males in the house, we decided the safest thing to do was get her out of there!

We moved her out and spent a month camping with her in a caravan. She was kept completely separate and every time she went outside it was like a military operation, with texts exchanged between the caravan and house. We are lucky enough to have our land fenced into paddocks, so she was even walked in different areas, to ensure neither Archie nor Toby got wind of her.

We would very much like to breed from her as she has an excellent temperament but that will depend on her hip and elbow scores. Like Toby, she will be tested when she is a year old.

For the time being, however, we managed to get through a very difficult 3 weeks for all of us.

On a different subject, we have been very keen supporters of Finns Law and are delighted by the news is that it is to become a reality in Scotland thanks to supporters and campaigners. If you have somehow missed this story of bravery by a wonderful police dog, you can read all about it HERE and lend your support to ensure that it comes into being in the rest of the UK. A word of warning though, have a tissue handy when you read it!

Dog on Wheels

Daisy does a wheely…

Through plenty of exercise on the underwater treadmill, swimming, and puller sessions, we have managed to build up quite a bit of muscle in Daisy’s back legs. But unfortunately, it’s not enough to keep her mobile on all four paws as although her back legs are strong, she has little control over them. Thanks to her worsening CDRM she doesn’t have much idea of where her back legs are. We have tried Rock tape around her feet to attempt to increase awareness, but it’s a losing battle.

It is heartbreaking because her legs are far from paralysed they work perfectly, just not in the way they should. When she’s sleeping and dreaming about chasing rabbits, she moves her legs easily, and when she’s swimming, there’s no stopping them. Just walking on dry land seems to be the problem.

When she’s in the house, she tends to drag herself around using her front legs. Outside, once you get her up and in a straight line, she can break into a somewhat drunken little trot, swaying from side to side.

We had to face the fact that, despite all our efforts, she was only going to deteriorate. When we spotted some dog wheels for sale locally, we snapped them up.

We are determined to keep her independently mobile for as long as possible but need to be prepared for the inevitable. She’s only been in the cart a couple of times, and she was a little confused by it, but we believe when the time comes, she will adapt to her new circumstances and will love the freedom that the cart will give her. It will allow her to run freely, keeping up with the other dogs without falling over. Just the way she used to, only with a little help.

Walking under water

Daisy takes a gentle stroll, underwater…

This month we’ve been watching the grass grow, literally. The prospective hay is shooting up, and due to the amazing weather, we may actually have a chance of getting a few bales this year. Admittedly it hasn’t been as warm as the rest of the country, and we do tend to get soggy haar in the evenings, but nonetheless, a massive improvement on previous years.

With the grass so long and packed full of buttercups, the dog’s legs have all turned yellow which is very noticeable on Daisy especially when she goes swimming!

Speaking of Daisy, she had her first session on the newly installed underwater treadmill at our local hydro centre. She did amazingly well and seemed quite relaxed about it all. Secretly she would have preferred a swim, but she would never admit that. She pretends she doesn’t enjoy it, but then can’t wait to get in the car, which is a revelation in itself as she has always really disliked car travel.

You can see how she got on here:

We also attended a Pet First Aid course which was incredibly useful and informative and well worth doing.

 

Daisy takes to the water

We get to swim with dogs…

Her first swim had to be cancelled due to illness and another trip to the vet, but we finally got Daisy to the pool last week.

She’s not the easiest dog to deal with and her condition has left her grumpier than usual, probably due to the fact that she feels quite vulnerable. She has always been in charge of the pack and now her authority is dwindling.

On arrival at the pool, she had a quick shower, slipped on a life jacket and then it was time to get her in. Unlike with Toby one of us was going in with her to reassure her so it wasn’t a great problem to get her down the ramp and into the water. Once there was nothing under her feet and she had to swim, she took to it like a duck to water.

She did a few laps with some assistance and then got to swim all on her own.

We’re not quite sure if she was actually enjoying herself or if she was just so shocked by the whole experience that it left her silent rather than her normal grumbly self.

In the evening she was exhausted and could barely eat her evening treat, but by the next morning, she was back to full growl!

She’s got another swim booked and we are hoping to get her on the underwater treadmill when it is up and running.