Tag Archives: Dogs

Merry Christmas from the Team

Celebrations and chaos

 

Toby

We collected our new boy, Toby, at the beginning of December.  We were worried about his long journey home in the car, but thanks to some very good advice, we all arrived home unscathed.

He travelled on the back seat in a small crate in which we had put a very comfy bed with high sides so that he felt supported but could move around.  The door was open but we fitted a barrier so that we could put hands in to comfort him but he couldn’t get out.

After some initial fidgeting, he slept most of the way and wasn’t sick at all, which was our biggest concern.

He has settled in well, in fact you would think he’d always lived here!

Archie loves him, Daisy tolerates him but Jack is not very keen.

Whilst we’re waiting for him to have his second vaccination, we haven’t taken him into the big field to run with the others so socialisation hasn’t been easy in cramped conditions.  We are working hard to try to get them all to feel happy and relaxed together but the nippy little pup is proving to be a challenge.

We have, of course, started clicker training and he’s taken to it like a duck to water.  It’s truly amazing how quickly he picks things up.

Speaking of picking things up, he does seem to be rather obsessed with stones!  We’ll have to train him out of that before he starts swallowing them!

It’s going to be a busy Christmas here, with not much time for relaxing in front of the TV thanks to our new arrival.

Best wishes to everyone and we hope you have a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas with your four legged friends!

Our pets have the Munchies

Archie, Daisy, and Jack road test our new Pet Munchies range

With three dogs in our household we can get through quite a few dog treats, so it’s great that we can choose something healthy to give them.

Thankfully Pet Munchies premium gourmet treats are 100% natural and use good quality human grade meat and fish, so we don’t need to worry about what our dogs are eating.

We tested some, and they certainly went down a storm.  You can see the results in the video below!  Daisy, Archie, and Jack love the taste, and the choice of flavours too!

Chicken, liver, venison, lamb, fish, duck, all slow roasted in their own juices to make them extra tasty.  Surely even the most fussy dog would find something there to enjoy!

We find these particularly effective in training.  The Chicken, Chicken and Liver, and Sushi Dog Training Treats are already an ideal size, but to add in some variety, we chop some of the meaty strips into pieces and mix them all in.  What an effect that variety of reward has!

Cats needn’t miss out either, with three tasty varieties of Pet Munchies Gourmet Cat Treats!

See our full range of Pet Munchies.

Baled out!

We finally make hay but not in the sunshine…

What a difficult month it has been with regard to haymaking!  We started out with high hopes for August, thinking it would be filled with long sunny days.  How wrong can you be?

There wasn’t a day went by at the beginning of the month when it didn’t rain.  Sometimes not a lot, but just enough to dampen our plans.

As the month wore on, we were getting desparate and in the end settled for baling on an overcast day, so the hay wasn’t as dry as we had hoped, but not sopping wet.

We couldn’t risk storing it in the barn so stacked it outside and covered it with tarpaulins, which is not that easy in the strong winds.  Each morning it had to be uncovered so the sun and air could get to it.  Every so often we were caught out by showers, some so heavy we were soaked through trying to get the tarps back on!

Thank goodness it’s all done now and we have winter fodder for the hungry beasts.  The goats have sampled it and declared it edible so we should be OK with the sheep.

The dogs are delighted too as they have their field back and see where they’re going when they chase the swallows.  The babies have fledged the nest so there is plenty to keep them occupied.

We are also busy sorting the ewes ready to receive the tup and preparing the lambs for the mart.  This years lambs are our best ever and we are expecting top prices.  Let’s hope the buyers agree!

Rain stops hay!

We are rained off

It’s always a stressful time when haymaking comes around.  We are glued to the weather forecast, looking frantically for that small window of sunshine when we will be able to cut the grass.

This year has been appalling, every single day, except one, the heavens have opened and the field has been drenched.

For the last few weeks we have all been weaving our way through the long grass on our morning walks.  We can’t play with the Pullers as they would quickly be lost.  In fact, we have lost the dogs on more than one occasion.

The shame of it is, that this year the grass looks fantastic and would make lovely hay, if only we had the opportunity.

Even with a day of sunshine, it’s not going to dry the ground enough to drive the tractor over.

We are trying to hold our nerve and wait until August to see if the weather improves but if it doesn’t we may have to ask our neighbour to make large round bales of haylage.  These will be wrapped in black plastic, therefore not needing to be dried.  We are really hoping we don’t have to go down this route as the large bales are difficult to handle and have a short shelf life once opened.

However, it would be better to have haylage that no winter food at all for our beasts!

Muzzled!

We are worried when Jack falls ill

Jack has always been a bit of a chewer and a scavenger.  He likes to pick things up and before you can tell him to “leave it”, it will disappear down his throat.  Back in August last year, he swallowed a piece of rubber ball and had to have surgery to remove it from his gut.  Not long after that he was poorly again and we rushed him straight to the vet for an x-ray.

We realised that we couldn’t keep this up so decided that the only way to prevent him “snacking” on his walks, was to put a muzzle on him.

He wasn’t keen at first but he quickly got used to it, and after a while he developed a technique that turned it into a useful scoop to get things into his mouth – like snow or sheep poo!  He was also very adept at using it as a weapon on the other two, Daisy and Archie.  We called it his “warhead”!

After several months without incident we thought we would try him without it, as we really didn’t enjoy making him wear it, even if ultimately for his own good.

A couple of weeks of freedom later and he had severe diarrhoea.

We starved him for 24 hours then fed him cooked chicken and rice for a couple of days, but it made no difference and we were off to see the vet.

His temperature was on the high side of normal so the vet gave him something to get his gut working, a wormer, and suggested we carried on with the bland diet.

Over the weekend he didn’t improve at all so we took him back on Monday morning where he got a steroid injection and had blood tests.  We also had to provide a faecal sample.

Still no improvement, we were heading towards another x-ray but decided to wait for the test results.  In the meantime he had a course of steroid tablets to make him more comfortable and we were cooking him fish, chicken and rice every day.

All the test results were negative, we couldn’t find the cause of his ailment, so the vet put it down to colitis.

Just as we were at the end of our tether, he finally began to improve and is now back to his normal self, but with the muzzle reinstated!

 

Jack seems distracted…

Jack seems distracted in a clicker training session

During an impromptu clicker training session with Jack in the field, teaching him to go around a pole in the ground, we noticed that he seemed to be a little bit distracted and kept wandering off unexpectedly.

Whilst it is true that he does have quite a short attention span, we were near a livestock pen at the time and at first we assumed that he was more interested in the livestock than us. In fact, the real reason was completely different.

This is what happens:

Please excuse the poor sound quality.

Jack likes working for treats but he really responds to praise and attention too, so we try to use a combination of both to keep him interested.

We noticed that he would only wander off after we verbally praised him and gave him a rub. At some point in the past, we have inadvertantly taught him that the praise and belly rub marks the end of the session. Rather than being distracted, he is simply heading home because he thinks it’s all over.

We may need to fade that behaviour if we intend work with him for more than 30 seconds at a time…

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Daisy and Archie with the Puller

Daisy and Archie play with the Puller exercise toy

Here we have Daisy and Archie playing with the Puller Exercise Toy for Dogs.

The Puller has been designed with exercise and stimulation in mind, and just 3 simple exercises – running, jumping, and pulling – over 20 minutes will provide a workout for all of your dog’s muscle groups, and is the equivalent of 5km of intensive running. Perfect if you like to keep your dogs in tip top condition.

This video shows the Standard size, which should be suitable for most dogs, but Mini and Maxi sizes are also available.

Today though, we are taking advantage of another feature of the Puller – it is great fun to use!

Daisy and Archie certainly love them!

Daisy tries a Slow Feeding Bowl

We change Daisy’s bowl to a Slow Feeder

Daisy is a very fast eater, and tends to bolt her food down at an alarming rate, so although her mealtimes are usually without incident, we decided to change her to a ‘slow bowl’ to help reduce the risk of health related problems. Bloat, for example.

Although there are a number of circumstances that might lead to bloat, many of which may not be fully understood, this is a fairly easy change to make.  We also modified our routine a little some time ago to allow more time between feeding and exercise.

There are several slow bowls available, but we decided on the Trixie Labyrinth Feeder.

See how she got on…

Director Daisy and the Dog Videocam

Daisy films an afternoon walk

The Eyenimal Dog Videocam is a small cylindrical video camera that fits onto your dog’s collar or harness, and records activities from their point of view. We tried one out with Daisy, one of our GSDs.

Once fully charged using the USB cable supplied, the camera was fitted to her collar using the bracket. This holds the camera in place but alows you to rotate it to get the best angle – a very useful feature.  The collar was tightened a little to stop it from sliding around her neck, and off we went.

Daisy’s fur could best be described at ‘medium’ in length, but it is quite thick at her neck and we found at first that it could obscure the front of the camera.

We tried various things to overcome this, the most successful of which was to use a short piece of 22mm foam pipe lagging.

It has been shaped slightly inside to keep the view clear and has a soft feel, so it doesn’t cause any discomfort but is snug enough to stay in place on the barrel of the camera. Short or close coated dogs obviously wouldn’t have this problem.

The next step was to position the camera so that it pointed where we wanted it to – forwards, and with the top of the camera actually at the top (otherwise you would end up recording upside down!).

Because we walk our dogs in the fields we use for our sheep, Daisy has a tendency to move around with her nose low to the ground, which in turn causes her to angle her neck, so it took a couple of attempts before we got the right position. The adjustment on the bracket makes this quite easy to do, and after about the third or fourth walk (checking the footage on a pc in between), we were fairly happy with it. We seemed to develop a feel for it eventually, so even if it is jogged out of place, it can be returned quickly.

Not all of the video gave us picturesque views of course, and there are definitely many sections of ‘blades of grass’ and so on, but overall the quality of the video is good and we found it immensly entertaining to watch her and our other dogs in action. We can also see how it might be quite useful in a training situation, and hope to try out the idea in future.

It isn’t just for dogs either. This camera is supplied with a cap that can accomodate the holding bracket, so you can record with it too!

We have only tried the continuous recording mode, but you can also select motion detect or stationary detect modes.

Here are some of Daisy’s highlights:

Target Training with Daisy

We try Target Training with Daisy

In this session, we introduce Daisy to the Treat and Train (briefly) and concentrate on some basic Target Training. The Treat and Train isn’t really necessary for this, but we had it on hand. A clicker and treats would be every bit as effective.

In target training, you are teaching your dog to touch a target of your choosing – in this case a target stick – which you can then use to direct or lure them during future training situations.  Once your dog touches the target reliably, you can position that target wherever you want your dog to go.

The interesting thing about this session is how Daisy swings between good ‘touches’, and behaving as though she’s never seen the target stick before, only seconds apart.  This isn’t uncommon, and the key as always is consistency.  We are rewarded at the end when, after a pause, she realises what she needs to do and touches beautifully.  You can almost see the mental cogs turning…

See how she got on…