So, parents of teenage pups, how was your weekend? Anyone do anything fun? Time for my Monday morning post on how we are doing with Tayla. I am glad to report that last week was a great week with her. No mouthing and the issues with my husband with jumping and biting have gotten much better. When she jumps on him he tells her to sit and she does. Maybe not for long, but she does it immediately. The fact that she is listening to him is a huge plus. She has had much more out of crate time since she is not being put back into her crate for time outs and can now be off leash in the house which makes it much better for me, too. Now she just gets put in for rest periods because she just never settles down outside the crate. Yesterday she had two long walks, several sessions of tug, lots of ball toss and retrieve, etc. and after 5 hours she still would not settle down for longer than a minute or two. Walks are 99% better as she is not biting and jumping and we are working on obedience during the walks. Watch me, come, sit, leave it are all parts of our walks now instead of “No Bite and Sit”. She is heeling better on leash and not pulling so much. I can feel my stress level go down because I’m not acting as referee between her and my husband and I haven’t had a new bruise from her all week. Let’s hope for another good week.

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Barb, Rick and Tayla (STAR Puppy)



Cheyenne (CGC) and Jesse (CGC) who will be always loved and never forgotten.

Things were getting better here. My husband has been traveling so last week I was the sole trainer. I tend to be more calm when things get crazy so it was a good thing I was the one handling her as she is a sensitive pup. She hadn't jumped on walks all week last week and play time was calm and controlled but still fun. It was great.

DH came home, I explained how things were going to be done right now while we were getting her into this new routine. He agreed but of course as soon as they get outside he took the toy from her and the jumping began. Instead of using the techniques I had told him about he got riled up and started yelling/trying to grab her collar to get her to stop. I told him this wouldn't work but do they ever listen? Well after about two session so this he finally tried it my way and what do you know, it worked!!! LOL...so after that he did his best to keep things my way. He doesn't have the same patience I do.

Anyways I think it set her back a little bit which sucks but he is gone again this week so back to the drawing board I go. She did a jumping/biting session this morning that got pretty crazy. I dont know where all the energy came from, it was so random and it was really hard to stop her today. I need to step up the training on her walks, thats for sure. We got back from the walk and instead of going downstairs like we usually would i figured she needed to run more so I took her out back. Wow - she did about 5 laps with the toy in her mouth on her own. She was a firecracker. She wasn't listening at all this morning - something was off with her. Perhaps watching DH leave again - she was frustrated. I dont know, but hopefully that was just an off morning and things will be good at lunch and later tonight.

I also think we are going to enroll her in some agility - she needs something to keep her busy and get her mind thinking again. That is her biggest struggle. She isn't in the training mode anymore and we have to get her back to that.

So here we go again, Monday is here and we are off! Hope everyone has a great week.

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Hmmmm , Bryley's and my weekend was a mixed bag of good and bad!

First the good! He got a new stuffie toy, it looks like a bear skin rug- only the head is stuffed and its big and wide. Bryleys usual MO with a stuffie is to immediately picking a hole into it by pulling the fur out. For some reason he is not destroying this one! He has had it for 3 days and it is still intact!

Now the not so good... he swallowed a Swiffer duster thingy.
WHY would he want to swallow a dry, 'feathery', toxic chemical coated, covered in dust Swiffer???? I just don't understand. My husband and I both were freaking out trying to get it from him- at first he had the whole thing, wand with Swiffer attached, then I pulled the wand and the Swiffer thingy stayed in his mouth. We went into super freak-out mode which probably prompted him to swallow even faster. He would not trade, sit, or anything and was running from us. Makes me feel like a training failure. Anyway, out to the backyard for a vomit session. I got my bowl with peanut butter on the bottom and put 2 T hydrogen peroxide in the bowl. Last time this worked great and he drank it all. Well, this time he took about 3 laps and backed away. I went to get my syringe to squirt more in his mouth. By the time I got back outside he was already in the process of bringing it up! YAY! I was happy that so little of the peroxide brought it up! Potential emergency diverted! Sure wish he was not an eater of non-food items.
Bet you're happy there are no vomiting pictures!!! LOL!

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4/1/2000 ~ 1/7/2011

Bailey Missing you Loving you Forever and ever.

I'm sorry, but I had to laugh at the last part. We have never had to go the proxide route, but good to know it works. Rick had the vacuum cleaner out yesterday and was cutting clumps of hair off the roller. The clumps of hair were laying next to him and I had just let Tayla in from playing outside. She made a bee line for Rick and spotted the hair and that was all they wrote. Rick said why would she eat a clump of dirty dog hair. Same reason your's ate the swiffer.....because it was there.

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Barb, Rick and Tayla (STAR Puppy)



Cheyenne (CGC) and Jesse (CGC) who will be always loved and never forgotten.

Dex is having quite the time recently, not listening being hyper and chewing everything in his sight he is driving us batty. We've had people over and he's had overly excited greetings. He'll jump on them, he brings them their shoes and he won't leave them alone.

His highlight in the past couple days is that we had a friend over and besides constantly pestering her, he decided to take out a tissue and then eat it and then took a menthol cough drop out of her bag and eat it.

The second that we turn our backs, he's trying to chew up anything that he can pick up no matter now many times we tell him to stop. He starts woofing and becoming overly mouthy so he's been getting more time outs than he's ever gotten. He has stopped listening to us, when we're outside I tell him to come inside and if it was a couple months ago he would have but he has decided to stop listening. Dex is so obnoxious that I can't stand it sometimes.

We've had enough, he's going to be booked to get neutered as soon as we get some money. Our cat Biff has what looks like to be a mammary tumor and we've had a needle biopsy on her and planning for surgery so things are a little tight right now.

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If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
-James Herriot

Barb, so glad that Tayla is making progress! Victoria, check out your local SPCA or humane society. They are usually very good at neutering and very affordable.

We have an overall good weekend until today. We took both big dogs to meet up with Dezymond and Maverick. Tucker did not behave well. He jumped a puppy that was licking his private parts and scared the wits out of him and one of his owners. Then he growled at Maverick, who he knows and has played with several times before. He had a time out in the car and then I brought him back in to the park with his leash left on. I walked to far end of the park because he usually stays close to me, to keep him away from the puppy. No further problems (although he growled at Mav as we were leaving). I think he's becoming protective of Bella. I'm hoping he'll chill a bit after she's spayed. Bella is doing well. She is a really amazing jumper and runner. People were amazed how high she can jump and hdow fast she is. I think we're going to try agility or dock diving with her when the finances alow it. The two of them together remain very sweet and dear. They like to be near each other all the time. I'm a bit worried about our Tess, though. We were told to watch her carefully and bring her in if she started coughing a lot because that's a sign of congestive heart failure. Well, she's started coughing a lot, and I'm pretty sure I hear fluid n her lungs. So in to the vet we go. They'll put her on meds and she could last a while with those, so nothing is imminent. It just hurts to think that she's winding down.

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Kathleen, mom to one human, age 17, three canines, and a bunch of fish.

Kathleen - so sorry to hear that about Tess. Hopefully she can bounce back! Will be thinking of her.

Dexter - I know what you mean, something is in the air, I swear.

I am really on my last straw with Koda. I dont know what to do anymore and I hate getting mad at her because really this is all my fault, not hers. We didn't teach her right when she was little, we were always too soft with her, and now we are paying for it. I get so frustrated in the moment and then get so mad at myself because she is doing what is natural, she doesn't know any better. But I just dont know what else to do. She jumped and bit and went crazy both on last nights walk and this mornings walk. I think it has to do with the weather but does this mean we can't walk her at all in the winter months because that is going to make for a very long winter. I dont know...I am out of ideas. I am afraid to walk her when that was my favorite thing to do with her before all of this. I just feel defeated. DH comes home Thursday so I think I am going to try to just play outside in the mornings and set up as many doggie play dates at night as I can to avoid walks until then...I dont know what else to do.

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I know just how you feel. I took pictures months ago of the bruises that I got walking Tayla when she was about 8 months old. I was covered and afraid to walk her by my self but I persisted after a short break. Our trainer told us not to walk her for at least a week to two weeks so the biting on walks would not get to be a habit. During that time we worked on lots of things at home. At least now you can probably wear a jacket or coat. My issues were in the middle of summer. Lots of easy skin areas. I don't know what happened with Tayla and why we had a breakthrough all of a sudden. I tried so hard to be consistent in what I was doing and maybe it just clicked with her. I don't know that giving her the command No Bite wasn't doing anything for us until I coupled it with a command that I wanted her to do instead and that was sit. It probably took a couple months of almost daily walks and biting and telling her to No Bite and then Sit and having treats available all the time to reward her with when she sat. I also worked on getting her a little excited at home and on walks and having treats in my hands and showing her that she could only have them if she sat and didn't put her mouth on me. We worked on this impulse control technique every place we were. We also did other things on walks like I'd hide a treat and she had to find it (part of our nose work) and we are now working on lots of obedience on our walks, ie. come, sit, down, etc. I know how hard this is because I never expected to get a puppy with these issues, but it has made me a better trainer because of it. Work with specific commands all the time that you think will be helpful in calming Koda down. Sit or down or some other command that she can use when calmer that will eventually translate to more excited situations. Good luck. I know Koda will snap out of it and be a great dog.

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Barb, Rick and Tayla (STAR Puppy)



Cheyenne (CGC) and Jesse (CGC) who will be always loved and never forgotten.

Thanks Tayla's mom for the words of encouragement. I know we can get past this, it just seems like a long road right now. We already learned last year that walking on snow was a no-no for Koda - she always freaked out and started this behavior if there was snow on the ground but I just wasn't expecting it due to the cold.

I got a suggestion elsewhere to try taking a can of pennies with me and when she does it I shake the can to distract her. I am hoping this has kind of the same effect on Koda as your "pssst" noise did for Tayla. Might take a break from walks tonight but try this tomorrow morning.

Thanks again!

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I still cringe if Tayla has to walk in sandy soil and will avoid it at all costs because that was one of her triggers. I'm waiting a while before I walk her in sand.

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Barb, Rick and Tayla (STAR Puppy)



Cheyenne (CGC) and Jesse (CGC) who will be always loved and never forgotten.