Posted by Lou, on May 14th, 2012
My puppy is now 7 months old and I wanted to find a new fun way of exercising her but also to improve on her training and stimulate her mind, so we joined a puppy agility class. It’s also a good source of exercise for me!
Our first lesson was last week. When I arrived, I must admit that I thought we would just be having fun running around through tunnels and over jumps, but the first weeks’ focus was purely on the commands needed in order to move your dog around the agility circuit.
We learnt how to keep her focus solely on me (no easy task when there are other dogs around I can tell you!) and how to make her stand and wait from a distance until I give the command for her to come to me. We were also asked to practice these commands at home, which we have been doing and she now seems to have become quite a pro! From experience at basic puppy obedience classes it is clear when owners don’t practice with their dogs outside of classes; often owners would bring their dogs along for one hour per week, not practice at home and then get frustrated with them when they couldn’t carry out the commands at class the following week.
I have to say that I was really pleased that the trainers take agility seriously in terms of training as it not only helps when it comes to the physical agility, but it is also extremely useful for me to apply when we are out on our walks.
This week’s lesson is going to be where we start to practice on the equipment, and I’ll post an update again next Monday to let you know how we get on. We can’t wait to get back to class on Tuesday!
Posted by Sue, on May 11th, 2012
 Our very first Ask Paws question was sent in by Kate who wants to know what we can tell her about puppy contracts.
Thanks Kate. This is a great first topic. Puppy contracts are part of a newly launched joint venture between the BVA Animal Welfare foundation & the RSPCA. The contract comes in 3 parts – PIP (Puppy Information Pack), contract and guidance notes – and is designed to help and protect all new puppy buyers. The pack contains all sorts of useful bits of information for anyone thinking about getting a new puppy, as well as a series of specific questions for the breeder/seller to complete regarding the puppy’s health and upbringing that will help demonstrate how much care and attention they have devoted to the puppies’ upbringing.
Once completed, the contract is signed by the breeder to say that all of the information they have given in the PIP is true and also by the buyer to say they understand the information they have received and that they intend to meet the puppy’s future health and welfare needs.
In principle, we think these puppy contracts are a great idea for everyone buying and selling puppies. Our only reservation is that the questionnaire is quite long and detailed and may put some people off? Memories of some people’s reactions to Home Information Packs (HIP) come to mind…
More information and a downloadable copy of the puppy contract is available from:Puppy Contract
Posted by Lou, on May 7th, 2012
 With a number of different classes available for us humans to tone our bodies and build our strength, flexibility and co-ordination, it’s not surprising that there are now classes out there for our dogs too.
Most of us are familiar with different types of exercise and enrichment for our dogs, such as agility, flyball and advanced obedience, but something I’ve recently discovered is Kinetics.
According to dog trainers, Kinetics helps dogs build their core muscular strength and balance in order to utilise their bodies to their full potential. Not only do the classes help your dog use muscles that they may not be using often, but they are also mentally stimulating.
Classes typically consist of a series of balance exercises that promote spatial awareness, co-ordination and strengthen deep muscles.
Although Kinetics is suitable for any dog, it is particularly good for young dogs to help them build strength and flexibility, dogs that are involved in competitive sports and those that have suffered from muscle injuries.
Neither Sue nor I have taken our dogs to Kinetics classes, and to be perfectly honest, we don’t know anybody else that has either. So, if any of our readers have either taken their dogs to these types of classes or know somebody that has, we’d love to hear what you think!
Posted by Sue, on May 4th, 2012
We’ve all had it drummed into us how important it is to self-check various parts of our anatomy regularly and to report any strange lumps or bumps to our doctor. Well, it’s equally important for us to keep an eye out for potential problems with our pets too.
Just like us, there are all sorts of things that can cause lumps and bumps in our cats and dogs and also some things that we can easily mistake for a lump such as a tick or even a mass of tangled hair or fur. Also, just like us, if you do discover a lump, it is usually something quite simple and easily dealt with, so don’t always assume the worst! Most lumps will be caused by cysts, allergic reactions, benign tumours, or possibly an infection from a cut or a bite or even a grass seed embedded under the skin:
What pet owners should know about lumps
Of course, the golden rule is better safe than sorry so, if you do find an unidentifiable lump on your pet that is bleeding/weeping, obviously painful to the touch and/or which is noticeably increasing in size, and you are not sure what is causing it, pop along to your vet and have it checked out.
Posted by Lou, on April 30th, 2012
With all this torrential rain we’ve been having, resulting in an increase in the number of slugs and snails, we wanted to remind you all of the dangers of Lungworm. Lungworm Angiostrongylus vasorum (also known as French Heartworm) can cause major problems in dogs, and, left untreated can even be fatal. Take five minutes to look at the attached link and make sure your dog stays safe.
Lungworm
Lungworm can also affect cats. Visit the link below for further information:
Feline Lungworm
Posted by Sue, on April 27th, 2012
I once worked in software system design, where new design methods are big business for those that promote them. Of course, for yours to be accepted, you need to prove it’s better than the current one, and persuade people to try something new. The best way to do that is to debunk the accepted practices and destroy their credibility.
I find it fascinating that this also goes on in many other areas of life, including dog training. For some years now, dog training has been ‘dominated’ – and I use the word deliberately – by the belief that you, your family and your dog must become a pack (just like a pack of wolves in the wild) and that, as pack leader, you must ensure your dog knows his place. Dogs, we have been told, need a leader and, if you are not up to the job, they will instinctively step in and take on the roll themselves. Since a dog does not fully understand the complexities of the human world, the role is impossible for him and he becomes unbalanced as a result.
More recently, however, we hear that modern day behavioural science has discovered wolves actually live in harmonious family groups and that your dog does not need to be ‘dominated’ by you in order to know his place. Modern dog training is all about positive reinforcement of good behaviour and withdrawal of attention for bad behaviour – on the premise that a dog craves human attention and will quickly learn that bad behaviour results in loss of that attention.
I was speaking with an elderly person recently who told me he had trouble understanding any of the current training practices and that, in his day, a dog was rewarded for being good and punished for being bad – what he described as the carrot and stick approach. Did this mean that he ever physically hurt a dog? Well, no, not really, although he admitted to me that he had been known to shout at his dog on occasion. Once, he had even tapped his dog on the nose when it tried to sniff an electric socket.
To many reading this, shouting and smacking will sound old-fashioned and cruel, and I am certainly not advocating these methods – although I suppose some people might say that a tap on the nose would be preferable to an electric shock…
Obviously, it’s great that modern behavioural science is teaching us more about dog psychology than we knew before and we should definitely take advantage of this wherever practical. Maybe it’s true, for example, that if we let our dog go out the door before us, he won’t immediately assume he’s the boss. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea because there might be a cat sitting on the path that he will chase into the road.
So, what I once discovered about system design methods also seems to be true for other methods too. None of them are totally correct or totally wrong. All have their good points and their bad points. What does seem crazy is to allow ourselves to be convinced by the ‘spin doctors’ that because someone has come up with something new, everything that has gone before is wrong and should be discarded. This is what my elderly friend would call ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ and it makes no sense at all. Never forget these new ideas are worth a lot of money to the people pushing them and that means they will go to great lengths to discredit the competition!
It seems to me that, no matter what you choose to call it, in the end dog training mostly comes down to motivation. When you are at home with your dog and there is nothing else going on, it should be fairly simple to convince him that putting his backside on the floor when you say ‘sit’ results in him getting patted/praised /given a treat. Positive reinforcement. The difficulty comes when you are in the park with six other dogs racing around and a squirrel is running up a nearby tree and you say ‘come’ and expect your dog to return to you. The positive reinforcement that worked at home is now far less motivating than everything else that is going on, and your dog is also now so excited that he isn’t listening to you anyway.
Maybe, if positive reinforcement isn’t working, you could still follow the latest practices and resort to withdrawal of attention by walking away. In fact, chances are, eventually, your dog will follow you if you do this because he will be motivated not to lose sight of his family/pack/best friend or whatever label you want to use. However, what if, while ignoring your recall, he also happens to spot something on the far side of the park – and on the other side of a busy road – and rushes off to investigate that instead?
So, where does that leave us poor, confused dog owners? Ultimately, I need to know that when I ask my dog to do something, he will respond. Ideally, I would like to think he will do it out of respect or trust or love but, realistically, I know he will only do it when he is more motivated to do it than not. The elusive trick is, how to achieve that positive motivation, no matter what the level of distraction and, when someone comes up with a training method which guarantees that, maybe it really will be time to throw the baby out with the bath water…
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