Posted by Sue, on May 18th, 2012
Having only ever been owned by very independent, outdoor cats, I have never really given much thought to walking a cat with a collar or harness and lead. However, I recently received some advertising for what looked like a very practical cat harness and I found myself thinking about the practicalities of actually using it.
In my recent article, indoor cat or born to be wild, I discussed the growing trend for people to keep cats permanently indoors, and examined the justifications for doing so. Although I didn’t reach a firm conclusion for myself as to whether or not I would ever consider keeping an indoor cat, I did come to appreciate the reasons others do and, if you do, then I can also see huge justification for teaching the cat to walk on a leash so that you can safely explore a little of the outside world together too.
After some research I found this very comprehensive and seemingly practical guide on how to go about successfully training your cat to walk on a leash: Leash training your cat
The article makes what seems to me to be a very valid point about taking your time and showing endless patience – with a timely reminder that if you do enter into a battle of wills with any cat, you are almost certainly going to lose… I think maybe my dog has definitely got some cat in him somewhere!
It also makes a very good case for using a harness or a walking jacket rather than a collar to ensure your cat is not being pulled around the throat. We have come up with a couple of options for you to consider:
   
If you do decide to train your cat to go walkies, or you already have a cat who puts Fido to shame on the leash, please get in touch and tell us your stories.
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…
Posted by Lou, on April 9th, 2012
Having a new puppy means I now walk regularly in the local parks. I love our walks together, but one thing that has really struck (and frustrated) me is the lack of manners shown by both people and their dogs.
I am clearly not alone, as we’ve had a number of people emailing us about this issue, where young puppies and other dogs are frightened by ‘out of control’ dogs.
My puppy goes off lead, but as she’s still very excitable when meeting new dogs and people, I immediately put her back onto her lead so that I can control their meetings; after all, lots of dogs don’t want to be leapt all over by a bouncy puppy, and neither do their owners. I only wish others shared my consideration.
I’ve lost count of the number of dogs that have come bounding over to us. Whilst these dogs are all mainly friendly, what if my dog wasn’t or what if she was of a nervous disposition? Being charged at by another dog would create a bad experience for her right from the word go and potentially cause her a number of issues in her later life. This is certainly what happened to Sue’s dog Kodi who is now extremely nervous around all dogs after being knocked over several times as a puppy.
Today whilst out walking I came across a very inconsiderate owner who threw a dog toy right at us and caused his very large dog to knock mine off her feet, and he didn’t even stop to ask if she was ok, which thankfully she was – in fact, she hardly seemed to notice what had happened.
Owners that let their dogs run at other dogs are not only putting their own dog at risk, but also that of the dog and owner they run at. Most owners that keep their dog on a lead do so for a reason – perhaps because they are nervous or do not mix well with other dogs.
So please, dog owners, show some consideration for others when out walking your dogs to ensure it is a pleasurable experience for everyone.
Posted by Sue, on April 6th, 2012
A few months ago, I wrote a piece about Dog Scootering. As a result of this, one reader, Jan, got in touch to tell us about her experiences scootering with her dogs locally in Berkshire. Jan and I have exchanged a number of emails since and, as a result, she has called my bluff and I have finally got around to ordering a scooter and harness for Kodi and me to try. We’ve been out several times now and are definitely starting to get the hang of it! However, in case you’d like to know more about this fun sport from someone who actually knows what they are doing, Jan has kindly written a bit about her experiences:
Dog scootering with Jan Morries
Dog scootering is an activity similar to dog sledding in that the same type of harness and gangline are used for both, but instead of pulling you on a sled the dogs are hooked up to a scooter. Unlike a dogsled, a scooter is normally run with only one or two dogs and is not dependant on snow. Northern breeds, eg. Siberian & Alaskan Huskies & Malamutes are primarily used in sledding (although a team including Poodles has completed the Iditarod race), whereas most breeds, including the Northerns, can be run with a scooter. Of course, the smaller the dog, the more help it will require over certain terrain.
Returning home from a wonderful 4 day dog sledding trek in Northern Finland, where we each drove our own team of 6 Siberian Huskies, I started looking for something that would give me a similar buzz and, having heard in the past of Dryland Mushing, which includes scootering, I immediately started researching it. On accepting that I don’t live in a snowy region of the UK and that I don’t own a Northern breed either, I realised that I had to work with what I had: a willing 14 month old Border Collie called Roo. As she was a suitable age to start pulling, I didn’t delay in ordering a book on scootering, plus an X back harness, and our ground training started.
Roo, I feel, was partially responsible for getting me hooked on this sport due to her ability to enjoy and master most things I ask of her and she took to scootering so readily my interest was well and truly fuelled.
She caught onto the commands quite quickly, so then came the slightly more expensive bit of the equipment; the scooter. Once this had been delivered and assembled the real fun began, starting with short runs to the park, where a reward ball game took place. It then progressed onto forest tracks with longer distances being covered. Having read more than once how addictive this sport can be, it didn’t come as a great surprise that once I was a bit more experienced and felt more in control I wanted more strength and speed, so dog number two arrived, a lovely German Shorthaired Pointer/Lab cross, and Roo helped train her beautifully. Yes, running them together is faster, although it can also be a bit scary at times, but it’s well worth it!
So if anyone out there has a dog that just wants to run or a dog that needs to get rid of excess energy but cannot safely be exercised off lead, and if you enjoy a bit of a workout – take a look into this pastime. All you need is a dog that loves to run, a scooter, harness, gangline, and optional helmet, gloves, plus knee and elbow pads (it can hurt a bit if you fall). You also need reasonable balance and some basic training, and you’re away.
If you’re out and about in Berkshire and pass a middle aged woman, probably mud splattered, being pulled about the forest tracks by two or maybe even three dogs (yes, I have another new puppy in training now too!) please feel free to stop me and have a chat.
Jan Morries
Posted by Sue, on March 23rd, 2012
 Having only just launched our Barks but no bites in Berkshire campaign aimed at trying to make this the safest county in the UK for dog bite incidents, it was a bit disheartening to see this article in the local news this week:
Why do dogs attack posties in Bracknell?
Of course, a dog biting the post person scenario has always been a bit of a joke, unless you happen to be a post person, of course – in which case having an out of control dog on your daily round is anything but amusing! To be honest, with a bit of consideration and thought, it should also be totally unnecessary too.
As the Royal Mail worker in the article says, we have all been told that the reason a dog targets any delivery person is because the dog’s action is almost always instantly rewarded by success – the dog barks and/or growls, the delivery person goes away. What we are often not told, until it is too late, is that it is not very sensible to actually encourage your dog to become excited and to bark when someone comes to the door in the first place. When you stop and think about it, what is the point? If the person at the door is someone we want to invite in, we certainly don’t want our dog to be over-excited and jumping around our guests. If it is someone delivering something, or maybe wanting to read the meter, again we just want to be able to deal with it and close the door. We don’t want or need any input from our dog at all.
Here are our top tips to keep postie safe:
If you have, or are thinking of getting, a new puppy, then start as you mean to go on by rewarding him/her for being quiet and calm when someone comes to the door. You might want to keep a jar of treats by the door and ask visitors to give one to your puppy to help teach him that a visitor or delivery person is a good thing not a bad thing.
If your dog is already conditioned to over-reacting to visitors, you can still take steps to change that behaviour, by asking him/her to be calm, and rewarding acceptable behaviour. However, if your dog is likely to become aggressive with strangers, do not ask anyone to feed him/her treats directly, although they may still be able to throw your dog a treat without putting themselves in any danger.
If possible, make sure that your dog can’t get direct access to the front door at all, possibly by putting up a dog gate in the hallway. If that is not practical, then consider fitting a letterbox cage on the door so that your post person can open the letterbox without any danger of having his/her fingers bitten. Another option is to fit a lockable outside post box on the wall so that your post person doesn’t have to use the letterbox at all.
If your dog can’t be trusted to behave at the front door then shut him in another room before you go to answer it. Again, if you practice rewarding quiet, calm behaviour, you can gradually recondition him/her to see visitors as a good thing.
If your dog is likely to be in the garden alone, then make sure your back gate is secure and, if necessary fit chicken wire around the edges and along the bottom so that your dog can’t get his muzzle through anywhere to nip anyone. A dog should never be loose on his/her own in a front garden and/or where visitors have free access.
If your dog does threaten or bite your post person and is reported, the best outcome could be that Royal Mail refuse to deliver your post in future and you have to go and get it yourself. If you have ever queued up to collect a parcel you won’t need telling that you would not want to do this on a daily basis. The worst outcome however is that you could be fined under the Dangerous Dogs Act and your dog may be taken away from you and even PTS. Don’t wait until it is too late. Act now and keep your postie safe!
If you have any other thoughts or suggestions on how to keep our posties safe, please let us know.
Posted by Sue, on February 20th, 2012
 Another crazy new idea from America or a great new tool to help with stimulation, training and relaxation for your dog?
Well, what else can I say? Here’s the website link. Have a look for yourself and see what you think: Dog TV.
I know for a fact that Kodi will watch TV sometimes, especially if he hears an interesting sound that he recognises like a squeaky toy, for example, so it’s no huge step to accept that, if the content were to be aimed specifically at him, he’d probably give it a go. Besides, let’s face it, anything that can help break up the tedium for some dogs of a long day alone waiting for their owner to get back home from work must be worth considering. Also, looking at some of the Dog TV trailers on their website, it appears to be a lot more interesting than many of our current ‘human’ channels too – we say, bring it on!
Question: If dog TV were to be launched in the UK, would you consider it for your dog? Let us know your thoughts.
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