Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
19 weeks old, and 11 weeks in!
Are weeks getting shorter?
Hi everyone. So here we are again, Penny had her second obedience class last night. Jeri came with me this time (I think she just wanted to see if I was exaggerating about how well behaved Penny was last week...shhhh!. That's between you and me). Penny was awesome, breezed through what we had learned last week like a pro, and the other two dogs were just as spazzy as they were previously. Had an interesting lesson this week about walking your dog on the leash. The way I've been taught in the past, was when your dog pulled, then you give the leash a yank, say "No pull" or whatever. But not now. The theory is, you have your dog on a 6' leash, which I do anyway, and you let them pull, when they get to the maximum length of the lead, and therefore start to pull, you stop in your tracks, say nothing and wait. Then when the dog relaxes a little, you say "Good dog!" and carry on walking until they pull again, and so on, theory being they'd rather be walking with you than not at all. We practiced this down the aisles of PetSmart, and it kinda worked OK, except there's way too many distractions with people, other dogs, doggy treat smells etc. But the instructor said Penny did well, so I put it into practice this morning. We were told it might take us forever to go anywhere, but to persevere and the rewards will come. My big concern was that I would look a complete dick in front of the neighbors, but I soon shook that off with the thought "F*** 'em! This is for Penny and me, not them".
Off we set, and I let her have full play with the leash, which she proceeded to trip over and grab with her mouth and shake it. So I stopped, unwound it from her legs, and shortened it to about 4' long, and off we set again. Of course she pulled (She's never pulled hard, but does put strongish tension on the leash), I stopped, and after about 5 to 10 seconds she relaxed, I said "Good girl!" and off we went again. Three steps later I stopped again, she then realized we weren't going anywhere and sat down. Off we went again, there was a little girl stood down the street, I'm assuming waiting for a bus or a lift, and Penny wanted to go to her. Every time she pulled I stopped, she sat down and we set off again. The girl probably thought we looked weird and she crossed the road out of our way, and every time Penny made a move to go to her I stopped and she'd sit down. It took us a while to do our usual morning mile walk, about 40 minutes I think, but it was a lot easier than yanking her back, and eventually she was walking beside me quite happily and looking up at me, with the leash dangling between us. So I'm impressed with that, it's not hard to do, and you do get moments of huge reward. We'll definitely be working on that all the time in the future. Hopefully when she's not pulling we can go for longer walks.
Last Friday we took Penny to doggy day care. We want her to socialize with other dogs and get used to not being with us 24/7. This place called Woof World have an initial evaluation, they keep your dog for 4 hours and slowly introduce it to the other dogs during that time, it cost $10, good value! Jeri was traumatized when we left, thinking Penny wasn't going to have a good time. But we went off and did some shopping, visited Jeri's mom and went back to pick her up at the end of the 4 hours. When we walked in, I leaned over the fence of the compound, there were about 8 other dogs there, and when they saw me, they all rushed towards me, except Penny. The other dogs jumped up at the fence, squeaking and barking, and Penny was just laid on her tummy, front legs stretched out in front of her looking at me, not sulking, she looked happy to see me, but wasn't going to lower herself to spaz out like the other dogs. The lady in charge said she did really well, teamed up with a Cocker Spaniel, who when he first came up to Penny he rolled over on his back, and then so did Penny...talk about being submissive! Apparently she didn't play much but was quite content to just mooch around and watch the others. I'm good with that. When we got her home, she crashed out for over 4 hours!
Regular readers might remember the photos of Penny looking in through the window asking to come in. To do that she stood on one of our patio chairs. The other evening I went to check where she was, she was not on the chair, but the patio table, taking a stroll around the umbrella. BOY! Did I want to take a photo, but I had to chastise her for that, which is difficult when your suppressing a laugh. I've included a photo of the table here, try and imagine what I saw!
Well Penny and Abby seem to be friends now, Penny got up on the cats' sofa the other morning (Can you believe we have furniture that are only there for the animals?), she went to sleep and Bunny climbed up into her usual position and went to sleep also, see below:
And I took this one to show how thankful we are that Penny is not yet tall enough to reach the top of the cat tree...hee hee!:
Last Sunday, Jeri, Penny and I had a very pleasant walk by the banks of the local river.
That's it for this week folks, until next week, see ya
Kevin and Penny
Hi everyone. So here we are again, Penny had her second obedience class last night. Jeri came with me this time (I think she just wanted to see if I was exaggerating about how well behaved Penny was last week...shhhh!. That's between you and me). Penny was awesome, breezed through what we had learned last week like a pro, and the other two dogs were just as spazzy as they were previously. Had an interesting lesson this week about walking your dog on the leash. The way I've been taught in the past, was when your dog pulled, then you give the leash a yank, say "No pull" or whatever. But not now. The theory is, you have your dog on a 6' leash, which I do anyway, and you let them pull, when they get to the maximum length of the lead, and therefore start to pull, you stop in your tracks, say nothing and wait. Then when the dog relaxes a little, you say "Good dog!" and carry on walking until they pull again, and so on, theory being they'd rather be walking with you than not at all. We practiced this down the aisles of PetSmart, and it kinda worked OK, except there's way too many distractions with people, other dogs, doggy treat smells etc. But the instructor said Penny did well, so I put it into practice this morning. We were told it might take us forever to go anywhere, but to persevere and the rewards will come. My big concern was that I would look a complete dick in front of the neighbors, but I soon shook that off with the thought "F*** 'em! This is for Penny and me, not them".
Off we set, and I let her have full play with the leash, which she proceeded to trip over and grab with her mouth and shake it. So I stopped, unwound it from her legs, and shortened it to about 4' long, and off we set again. Of course she pulled (She's never pulled hard, but does put strongish tension on the leash), I stopped, and after about 5 to 10 seconds she relaxed, I said "Good girl!" and off we went again. Three steps later I stopped again, she then realized we weren't going anywhere and sat down. Off we went again, there was a little girl stood down the street, I'm assuming waiting for a bus or a lift, and Penny wanted to go to her. Every time she pulled I stopped, she sat down and we set off again. The girl probably thought we looked weird and she crossed the road out of our way, and every time Penny made a move to go to her I stopped and she'd sit down. It took us a while to do our usual morning mile walk, about 40 minutes I think, but it was a lot easier than yanking her back, and eventually she was walking beside me quite happily and looking up at me, with the leash dangling between us. So I'm impressed with that, it's not hard to do, and you do get moments of huge reward. We'll definitely be working on that all the time in the future. Hopefully when she's not pulling we can go for longer walks.
Last Friday we took Penny to doggy day care. We want her to socialize with other dogs and get used to not being with us 24/7. This place called Woof World have an initial evaluation, they keep your dog for 4 hours and slowly introduce it to the other dogs during that time, it cost $10, good value! Jeri was traumatized when we left, thinking Penny wasn't going to have a good time. But we went off and did some shopping, visited Jeri's mom and went back to pick her up at the end of the 4 hours. When we walked in, I leaned over the fence of the compound, there were about 8 other dogs there, and when they saw me, they all rushed towards me, except Penny. The other dogs jumped up at the fence, squeaking and barking, and Penny was just laid on her tummy, front legs stretched out in front of her looking at me, not sulking, she looked happy to see me, but wasn't going to lower herself to spaz out like the other dogs. The lady in charge said she did really well, teamed up with a Cocker Spaniel, who when he first came up to Penny he rolled over on his back, and then so did Penny...talk about being submissive! Apparently she didn't play much but was quite content to just mooch around and watch the others. I'm good with that. When we got her home, she crashed out for over 4 hours!
Regular readers might remember the photos of Penny looking in through the window asking to come in. To do that she stood on one of our patio chairs. The other evening I went to check where she was, she was not on the chair, but the patio table, taking a stroll around the umbrella. BOY! Did I want to take a photo, but I had to chastise her for that, which is difficult when your suppressing a laugh. I've included a photo of the table here, try and imagine what I saw!
Well Penny and Abby seem to be friends now, Penny got up on the cats' sofa the other morning (Can you believe we have furniture that are only there for the animals?), she went to sleep and Bunny climbed up into her usual position and went to sleep also, see below:
And I took this one to show how thankful we are that Penny is not yet tall enough to reach the top of the cat tree...hee hee!:
Last Sunday, Jeri, Penny and I had a very pleasant walk by the banks of the local river.
That's it for this week folks, until next week, see ya
Kevin and Penny
Comment
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Comment by HANNAH 8/2/07 & HONEY 7/2/08 on August 28, 2009 at 2:56pm
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Enjoyed reading about Penny and her weeklong adventures. Pictures are fantastic, loved the river and Penny looks fantastic with her new "DO" ....Glad to hear training is going good for you and Penny. People who truly understand training a dog will admire your attempt's and watch as you succeed with training Penny, the one's who make comments that are negative are those who either failed at trying to train an animal, or never had one to know what it takes and they lack any experience.
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Comment by Jenn on August 27, 2009 at 10:22pm
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Thank you SO much for your blogs. I am picking up our Labradoodle in less than 2 weeks and it is so nice to hear your thoughts and trials and challenges around teething and nipping and especially about how your cats are doing. I have two 5 year old cats and one of them is dominant but they both do well when we bring over adult dogs (I dog sit for family members all the time) after about 2 or 3 hours. It will be interesting to see how they do with a puppy. They've never been around one before. I like your idea around your blog and I've been keeping a photo log of each visit we've had with her so far and I might blog about our interactions with her after we bring her home. You give me hope that phases will pass and that my cats will get over it in time. Keep up the blogging and thank you so much!
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Comment by LuvMyAbby&Kaela on August 27, 2009 at 7:35pm
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That was an enjoyable read. And she looks great.
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Comment by Ann Kendig on August 27, 2009 at 1:54pm
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Penny looks great! I really enjoyed your post and pictures.
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Comment by Kevin Poole, Penny & Ozzy on August 27, 2009 at 8:37am
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Well Michele, we're so lame, we didn't even know where that river walk was until we got Penny. 4 years we've lived here and haven't explored our locality at all. Now I've got a good excuse, we'll be more adventurous!
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Comment by Leigh & Allie on August 27, 2009 at 8:25am
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Penny's new do is adorable!!
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Comment by Michele Barton on August 27, 2009 at 8:17am
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Hi Kevin, that's a great suggestion regarding walking. I'm going to try that with Gus and Molly. Glad things went well at daycare. Penny seems to take everything in stride - no high blood pressure for her! As usual, your pictures are super! Abi-Normal better learn to tuck in her tail! Why did you buy a pool when you have that beautiful river near you? I'd be there every day if I had something like that (well, every other day :)). Penny looks quite sophisticated and more poodly in her new do!! Very cute!
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No Adrianne, we didn't take in pictures, we wanted to see how this groomer interpreted what we asked for, we figured if she messed it up, the hair will grow back. Cruel I know, but I'm bald, I'm kind of a fatalist about hair...hee hee! And yes I agree with you about walking and everything will follow, that's why I'm quite happy to spend as long as it takes to get it down.
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Comment by Adrianne Matzkin on August 27, 2009 at 2:58am
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I just love your weekly diary!! I think your groomer did a fantastic job!! Did you bring in pictures?? I would take pictures of her now from every angle to bring back to the groomer for the next time just to make sure.
Getting the walking down is probably most the important command - I believe if you get that down and all the others become easier to train.
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All the cats have given names, but the aka's are what we called them as they're personalities etc developed. Abby's called Bunny because her fur is soft like a bunny's. Chloe is called Skippy because she has a skip in her step, walks along then just does a little skip every now and again, she's very girlie...got the temper of one too, should have been a redhead...hee hee! And Violet had that name when she was given to us by a friend...we call her Potsy, because she acts like a real stoner! Yeah I know, takes one to know one....no comment!
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