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The online diary
started life as a blog of my strange 'other life' with the dog. I
wanted to record some of the experiences that I had as a first-time dog
owner. To access the archive, click on the appropriate month.
The most recent articles are listed
separately.
You are most
welcome to send comments about any of the articles. Record your
comments via the Contact Me page.
A DANGEROUS BUSINESS
Mon 03 Nov 2008
Fellwalking
can be a dangerous business for dogs, especially small dogs like
Beattie.
Take last
week, for example. We had a week in the Lake District and enjoyed some
lovely walks on the fells, climbing Ling Fell, Holme Fell, Bannerdale Crags
and Walla Crag. On the latter two outings,
Beattie discovered that fellwalking can damage your health!
It was a cold
frosty day up on Bannerdale Crags and the water had frozen on the path that
skirts the rim of the crags. Beattie loves
ice and she had a fine time trying to chew her way through the ice and
running off with a small chunk in her mouth. Unfortunately, she became
rather too excited and ran straight into my walking pole. Of course, she
immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had hit her with my stick and
cowered in fear unless I did it again! Nothing could be further from the
truth – it was a complete accident. I tried to give her a bit of TLC, but
she shrank back and gave me a very wide berth for the rest of our walk.
The next day,
we were climbing Walla Crag by the Cat Gill route. We had to negotiate a
couple of kissing gates on the path. Nothing unusual about that, as we come
across these obstructions quite frequently. Unfortunately, this particular
gate had a stronger return spring than we usually encounter and
Beattie caught the end of her tail in the gate
as it shut behind her. Ouch! That must have been painful as she tucked her
tail right between her legs and gave me a look of reproach as if to say,
‘Why are you treating me like this?’
Once again,
all I could do was to give her a few words of comfort, but I had the same
reaction. Clearly. Beattie believed I had
done it on purpose and that there was a strong case for calling in the RSPCA
to investigate another case of animal cruelty!
Poor
Beattie! I didn’t want her thinking I was
nasty to her, but both incidents had been complete accidents.
Unfortunately, there was no way that I could I ever explain that to her?
Now I am hoping that she has a very short memory! Back
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Comment from
AT
Sounds like close
heelwork will need a lot of rewarding for a while!
Comment from
sablonneuse
Poor Beattie. Hope her tail wasn't damaged.
One of our cats needed surgery after his tail was caught in the
door.
Comment from Tracey Lilly
She is obviously
feeling totally confused but I am sure she loves you really!
Glad you had a good time at half term.
Looking forward to seeing you on 26th Nov.
Is it 7.00pm or 7.30pm?
It's 7.15 for 7.30,
Tracey. Derek
IN THE PINK
Sat 15 Nov 2008
Dogs are like
children; you clean them up and before you know it they are filthy again!
Well, that’s my experience with Beattie. We
drove over to AT’s house this morning as I had
arranged to have Beattie groomed by
V in the makeshift ‘grooming parlour’ set up in
the garage. It is an arrangement that suits everybody, but especially us as
Beattie is attended by somebody she knows very
well, and it also gives her a chance to socialise with
AT’s dogs; always an interesting experience.
As soon as the door
was opened a river of dogs poured out into the hall to
greet little Beattie, who was soon overwhelmed
in a cascade of wagging tails as excited dogs struggled to welcome the
visitors! I just about managed to make the kitchen before I too become
engulfed by the tide! AT barked out orders and
the dogs calmed down, the initial excitement now over.
Beattie looked extremely smart and sweet
smelling by the time V had finished with her.
I took her home as the next ‘client,’ a cairn terrier, arrived on the scene.
A and I took Beattie
out for a walk this afternoon. We decided to walk over the field at the
back of our house as it has not yet been ploughed and gives
Beattie a chance to run off lead for a while.
Of course, there was no chance that she would remain in pristine condition
and a succession of muddy puddles ensured that her legs were well encrusted
before we returned back to the road. In addition, she spent quite a bit of
time nosing in the earth and somehow, contrived to find something that
turned her face completely pink! Goodness knows what she had found but it
took a good deal of scrubbing with a wet cloth to return her to her original
colour on our return.
I have heard
of people being in the pink of condition but I’d never imagined what it was
like for a dog. Now I know! Back
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Comment from
sablonneuse
Now this shows one of the advantages
of having cats. They play around in the garden and come in all
covered in dirt but in no time they lick themselves clean.
Comment from Tracey Lilly
Never a dull moment with Beattie.
Do you have to clean her up in the garage before she is allowed into
the house on your lovely cream carpet?
No, we usually manage to
clean her up in the kitchen! Derek
SKATEBOARDING
Wed 19 Nov 2008
Occasionally,
AT comes up with some wacky ideas as exercises
for dog training sessions. There was another prime example at dog club last
night – skateboarding!
OK, so we’ve
all seen those YouTube videos of skateboarding dogs, but when
AT suggested that our dogs could learn to ride
a skateboard, well it sounded a bit way out as far as I was concerned. But,
no, there was madness behind the method.
This kind of
training is called ‘shaping’ and it is no different to teaching your dog a
new trick, as I did in the last fortnight. AT
demonstrated how I could teach Beattie to wave
a paw and she picked it up surprisingly quickly. You begin by waving food
near the dog, and she might lift a paw whilst trying to retrieve the treat.
If the dog does this she is ‘clicked ‘ and given the treat. The ‘click’
(using a clicker) is the signal for the dog that she has done the right
thing to be rewarded. At first, she will not associate the click with her
waving a paw around, but it is surprising how quickly they cotton on to what
is required! When she has learned the behaviour, you can add a command
and/or a hand signal, and before long the dog responds to the command or
signal at will.
Last night, it
was skateboarding. Well nobody expected the dogs to skateboard in one
lesson. All we had to do was to get the dog to put its front feet on the
skateboard to get a reward. Easier said than done, in
Beattie’s case. The idea was to put a treat
almost on the end of her nose and lure her forward until she ‘accidentally’
placed a paw on the skateboard. The other dogs managed this very quickly,
but Beattie decided to go round the skateboard
instead. I had to move to the other side of the board and we ended up going
round and round in circles!
AT took over to demonstrate how it should be
done and it was not long before Beattie had put
both paws on the skateboard. It must be quite daunting at first as the
solid surface moved, which is rather unsettling for some dogs.
Based on last
night’s performance, Beattie will not be
appearing in YouTube videos any time soon! Back
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SMELLS
Fri 21 Nov 2008
The sense of
smell is a dog’s most developed device for reading its surroundings and
surviving in the world. That’s my opinion, anyway after close observations
of Beattie over the past two and a half years.
She is a dog
that lives and breathes ‘smells’ and when we are out and about, her nose
seems to act as her eyes as she trots along, head down, intently snuffing
and smelling her way through the countryside.
Take yesterday
as a typical example. We were on one of our regular walks across the local
fields and as we drew near to a farm there were horses the other side of the
hedge. Beattie sensed that something was the
other side of that hedge that she could not see. She stretched herself up
with her twitching nose in the air and sniffed the air with subdued
excitement. She was off lead at the time and I just had to watch that she
did not make a bolt for the hedge to investigate what was so obviously an
intriguing smell! At times like these a treat given after a ‘trick’ usually
has the desired effect of diverting her attention.
Later on our
walk we were walking alongside another field and the atmosphere was full of
a pungent aroma that could only be porcine in origin! Maybe it was
something the farmer had spread on his field prior to ploughing as a man in
a tractor was so engaged a short distance away.
Beattie’s reaction was immediate. She stood on
her hind legs rather like a meerkat and pointed her nose high into the air
as if trying to see the source of the strange smell that excited her so.
She ran a few paces and repeated this action, clearly looking in the
direction of the smell. This behaviour continued until we had turned out of
the field on to a muddy lane where the smell ceased abruptly! It had been
rather comical to watch and was one of those occasions when I wished I had
taken my camera.
As far as
Beattie was concerned, that smell had made her
day! Back
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ARCTIC BLAST
Sat 22 Nov 2008
The first
snows of winter hit Suffolk today! For Beattie,
it was an unwelcome shock in the early hours of the morning.
Normally, when
Beattie pads around the bed in the wee small
hours, it only usually means one thing – she wants to go outside. I never
wake up on these occasions, but A does and the
first thing I am aware of is an urgent voice telling me that
Beattie wants to go out!
It’s a rude
awakening, but it doesn’t happen very often, so I usually manage to get up
without too much grumbling. After all, she cannot take herself outside.
Today was different, though. It was 4,30 a.m. and she did not have that
desperate look about her. I called her to the door and she came almost
reluctantly. Still believing she wanted to go out, I opened the door and
pushed her out, following close behind.
Then the blast
straight from the Arctic hit us! The back of the house faces north and,
consequently, when the wind is blowing from that direction, it is funnelled
down the drive most unpleasantly. This morning, it was worse than usual,
having only just emerged from a warm bed into an icy wind tunnel complete
with driving snow! Beattie was having none of
it. She quickly sized up the situation and shrank back against the wall. I
pushed her forward, but she had clearly had enough to know there was no way
she was going to venture any further into the garden. Her tail went between
her legs and she slunk back to the back door waiting patiently until I
opened it. Thankfully, she jumped inside and that was that. Obviously, she
was not that desperate and she had soon curled up in the lounge with no
thoughts of emerging until daybreak, at least!
Beattie
must have just been stretching her legs when she disturbed us, but she got
more than she bargained for, that’s for sure! Back
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Comment from
sablonneuse
Let's hope she
doesn't want to go out too often in the freezing early hours - for
your sake as well!
As for skateboarding as in your previous post, I sympathise with
Beattie and don't blame her for not being a 'natural'
Comment from Jo
Oh yes, Derek's Wind Tunnel. What can I say
- I've experienced it and even when it's good it's bad! I think
Beattie needs a telephone number to dog-line - being forced into
that is not funny.
Unfortunately, I do have a windy back passage! derek
GROWING UP
Sun 30 Nov 2008
Beattie is two and a half years old, and in
some ways is beginning to grow up, at last. Just lately, we have decided
that we can move her crate out of the kitchen, as she does not have to spend
every night there any more. She sleeps on one of the chairs in the lounge.
The first night we tried out this new regime, I was convinced that she would
jump up on our bed with two minutes. We left her crate door open when I put
her in there for the night. True, she appeared at the bed with a minute of
the light being turned out, but instead of getting out of bed, I told her to
go back to her crate and then ignored her. What she did was to sleep on one
of the lounge chairs, but, crucially, did not disturb us again that night!
Well, that was
an advance, as previously she would have jumped up on the bed, but we had
cured her of that by not allowing her on the new bed! The next night I went
through the same ritual, but this time she just made her way into the lounge
to sleep. Obviously, that was where she felt most comfortable. On the
third night, we just left her in the lounge and ever since then she has been
fine. About a week later we packed up her crate as she was no longer using
it.
For some time
previously to this we had not been putting her in her crate when we went out
without her as we now felt we could trust her not to do any damage, and she
has been as good as gold.
Everything
considered, life with Beattie is a lot less
frenetic than it used to be when she was a puppy and those awkward ‘doggy
teens’. Thank goodness! Back
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Comment from Jo
What a good Beattie. I bet she finds my
bed at Xmas !!
I bet she does, the little minx!! derek
Comment from Tracey Lilly
Just like children - train them early and
hopefully you will reap the rewards later.
The training has definitely helped as
it is now quite easy to teach Beattie new behaviours even modifying
established behaviour patterns. derek
Comment from
Gary
Derek - we used to have similar problems
when we first got Tim from the rescue centre, he was meant to live
outside in a 'run' that we had built for him, little did we know he
hated been locked up in the cage, he got so distressed he actually
pulled the nails out with his teeth. After that we left in the house
while we were out and he's never been a bit of bother!
Gary ...
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Photographs taken with a Fuji MX-2900
Zoom or a Canon EOS 20D
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