OUR FRIEND HAS LEFT US

Miss Bella had been snoozing next to Mr. B. - woke up to see who/what was approaching.

Bella is the let's go for a walk dog. I took them fairly early yesterday, but still it was hot. Today, therefore, we left even earlier while it was still cool and while the sun was low enough in the sky that the houses cast long shadows in which we could walk. Bella's only regret is that we are not still out there on a walk.

You've got a couple of real cuties there, Set.

Bailey's not bad, either.

pushy aint she?
When does she learn "pack manners"?

I'll tell The Girl you said so . . . i suspect she'll be very flattered.

She's spent her entire life in a pen or a crate. She doesn't know manners of any kind. We're working on "DON'T GO OUT IN THE GODDAMNED STREET, YOU IDIOT!" right now.

ahh, the basics.

She darted into the street toward the end of our walk this morning as some jackass was roaring up the street as though it were the on-ramp of an expressway. I had no choice but to grab the lead and drag her back as fast as i could. She doesn't seem to resent it, but i'm beginning to despair of it sinking in.

You just need to teach her to "heel" as though she were a puppy. It's just a matter of basic leash training, which she may not have had before.

Teaching her all the basic commands--sit, down, stay, leave it, etc. will also help to keep her safer.

Maybe you should take her to some obedience classes. It might be fun for both of you, and it helps with bonding. Since she's not a hyper puppy, she should be able to learn all the basic commands quite quickly with repeated practice and rewards for good performance.

Until she learns not to dart ahead of you, you might be better off getting her a little body harness rather than using a collar with her leash--it gives you better control over the dog, and it would be much more comfortable for her. I've really preferred using the harnesses with my small dogs until they were fully leash trained. I worried about my small dogs injuring their throats when they suddenly bolted forward, and, with a harness, that can't happen.

Does she appear to enjoy the attention of being chased by a human of hers? If she likes having you run after her, you're in trouble.

No, she's just pretty much oblivious. She really doesn't know what's going on in the world around her, but it fascinates her, so i'm hoping that her love of going for walks and her fascination with the world will help. The problem is, she's fully grown--three years old--so you have the old dog/new tricks problem.

one way we used to leash train ADD doggies is to

1. use a restraint leash 9thats one that pulls the dogs head a bit whenever it really pulls on the leash)> Our dogs have always been the kinds that want to walk you so the restraint leash really trained em to not pull and to take commands

2A small can with some coins in or a "frog clicker" just to associate the command with a noise at first . The big Problems with most dogs is that they live entirely in the moment and must be taught consequences. One of our dogs was bounced by a passing pickemup when she ran into the road. She was hurt slightly but NEVER EVER ran into the road again. Without the trauma, those little froggie clickers or the can of coins gets their attention

Saying their name before the command usually gets their attention. You really have to use their name first before giving any command if you want to make sure they are listening.

Rewarding them with a treat for good performance teaches them consequences as well.

You can also associate the sound of a clicker with the treat, so then the clicker alone becomes a reinforcement. I just received a free clicker with something else I ordered for my puppy, and I'm going to try using it that way, although he's already pretty happy with verbal praise without being given a treat all the time.

This dog is so small, that even being hit by a bicycle could seriously injure her, or even kill her. (Don't get me started on bike people.) She's fully grown, and everything is a new experience, it is hard to focus her attention. When there are no distractions, she seems to get the part about not going into the street, and waiting at the corner to cross only on command. But as you are walking along, almost everything is new to her, so she gets easily distracted. She is most likely to dart into the street in the middle of the block because something suddenly catches her attention, or there's a dog or a person on the other sidewalk.

There is no problem--dogs are fully capable of learning at any age. If anything, a three year old should be easier to obedience train than a puppy because they are less hyper and better focused.

Not only that, she sounds like a reasonably well behaved dog. She's not running around chewing up everything in your house, she's not barking constantly, etc., so she may well have had some past training and she may be very receptive to any new things you want to teach her. At the age of three, she's hardly over-the-hill.

Only because she hasn't been trained before. No dog is born knowing how to heel on a leash--it's not a natural thing for a dog to do. She has to be taught to heel and taught not to react to all those distractions when she's out for a walk. She's able to learn all of that, but someone has to teach it to her. You have to start from scratch, just as if she were a puppy.

If you suddenly found yourself in a new environment, where there were different rules for behavior, or a foreign language was being spoken, wouldn't you want someone to help you learn what to, do or help you understand what was being asked of you? She needs someone to patiently teach her, and reward her, with praise or a treat, when she gets it right.

You can wait for her to learn how to walk on a leash by trial and error, because it will be unpleasant for her when her collar pulls on her throat, but she won't really be learning that you're the one in charge of the walk, and where she's entitled to go when her leash is on, and not to lunge or bark at things that distract her.

Haven't you ever trained any of your other dogs before? Did you just wait for them to figure things out on their own?

Maybe because I've always gotten my dogs when they were puppies, between 2-3 months old, I've always considered basic obedience training part of what I had to do as the owner, if I wanted to live with a well behaved dog. And the training, and watching the dog learn, has always been enjoyable, for both the dog and me, despite occasional frustrating moments. Dogs like to learn, even those who are no longer puppies, because it's mentally stimulating for them, just as it is for us when we're learning something new.

Get the **** off my back, will ya?

That is, by the way, a good description. With her background, absolutely everything is new to her. She'll do fine for about thirty seconds, and then something distracts her. We sat out on the porch for about an hour today, and she just couldn't sit still. Every noise, everyone who walked by, it all drew her attention, and she obviously wanted to get out there and run around. It will just take time.

Why, because I find hearing you say things like this upsetting.

The dog's not an idiot. She needs to be patiently trained. No dog is born knowing how to properly walk on a leash. No dog is born knowing how to ignore distractions. It's not the dog's responsibility to try to figure this out on her own. Sorry if you don't like to hear that.

That's because she's reacting just like a puppy would--and her experience in such situations is still at the puppy-level.

I agree with you that this will take time. It also takes specific training. Forget she's three years old, and train her just as you would a puppy.

The dog is not an idiot. She's acting perfectly normally, given her past, rather restrictive and limited, experiences.

Get the **** off my back, will ya? While you're at it, grow a sense of humor.

Pack manners are coming along - between Bella and Bailey.

Pack manners with the humans will take a bit longer but she's definitely capable of learning. I've been working on sits at corners with her. If it wasn't so brutally hot right now, I'd be doing much longer walks with her - and work on sitting when I say so. When I trained Bailey, we would sometimes take an hour or more to cover a block - with a sit and cross the street every 5 to 10 steps.

She's already doing fairly well on go-around. I'm not a fan of following dogs around poles when we're on a leash walk - so she's got to learn to go-around to get back to my side of the pole.

She definitely needs to hear her name a lot. Very little sinks in if it isn't accompanied by "Bella".