FBRN on the radio - Jan. 20th

Our trainer Renee Premeza hosts a radio show on WNJC 1360 AM every Thursday from 10:00 to 10:30 AM. On January 20th, she has invited FBRN volunteer Velma W. for an interview to speak on behalf of FBRN to promote awareness and the work that FBRN does for our dogs in need.

To listen to the show, go to WNJC and you can listen from a live feed via the internet or through your iPhone. It's really simple. You don't need to download anything. Just go here and click on "Click here to listen online" on duxstream.

Training: How to Meet-n-Greet Politely

On Saturday, our trainer Renee came over again along with Ellie Mae and her mom! We worked on the "meet n greet" when a new dog approaches, leash walking and showed Renee how well we sit in our bed while waiting for new people to arrive at the front door.

Ellie (left), Guinness (middle), Basil (right)

Ellie wuvs to pay wif us!

Some things maw learned. When a dog furiend is coming over for a play date, put the boys on leashes and go out into the back yard. We're not allowed to jump all over the fence and get rowdy. Maw has to take the leashes and walk us far far far away from the fence and give the furiend room to come inside. Then let the leashes drag and we're allowed to go sniff and play! Sometimes we get overexcited and need to be called away and have a little break. Then we're allowed to go back to playing.

Guinness must have had a good experience with Ellie because then he had a great play date with our neighbor Carmel the lab the next day! Maw made sure she wore Carmel out a wittle first. He sniffed all throughout our yard and then we came outside. Guinness did play bows and ran around with Carmel. It was a good positive experience for him. Maw felt so proud.

Next: Maw has to do distance work with Basil while in a down/stay.

Training: Guarding

Renee, our dog trainer visited again yesterday. This meeting was to work on Guinness' guarding issue (guarding of me and my husband when another dog is around) and his lack of manners when greeting another dog. We borrowed our friend Domino the boxer to come over to demonstrate to Renee how Guinness behaves.

We worked with Guinness alone and kept Basil in the kitchen. With harness and leash on, we walked Guinness outside and tried to keep him focused on ME by feeding him treats from my hand one after the other. Just TONS of treats. If he was facing the Domino, turn Guinness' body using the leash and walking in a circle while feeding him treats. Allow Domino to get closer and continue to do the same. Now, walk him in a circle and have Domino follow and tightening the circle a little at a time. Then we did parallel walking where I walked Guinness down the block with Domino walking about 5-6 behind. At the end of the block, we turned and now Guinness is behind Domino. We walked pretty close to Domino so Guinness could get a whiff of him. Then, we went into the backyard and let them run around while dragging their leashes. After a few laps, we introduced Basil into the mix. Guinness did do his chasing off the other dog and giving him a pull on the neck as a warning. Domino has a lot of energy and Basil and Guinness just don't appreciate that. They tried calming him and themselves by ignoring him and eating grass which is a good thing.

In conclusion, my husband and I "just" have to keep play dates short and sweet. Find dogs that are the right match. ie. A lower energy dog and/or a smaller dog. Alternate play time: Bring one dog out for the play date, then put him back inside and bring the other out for play time. Start by doing the greeting outside and do the parallel walking. Keep play dates outdoors. especially when a high energy dog is involved. Never indoors and not in small spaces either. One side of our yard gets very narrow along side of the house. Fence that off so they can't run down that way. This was something I wanted to do anyway so I'm glad someone agreed with me. Pay attention AT ALL TIMES. When you're not watching, fights happen.

The thing I have to get over is that things just aren't the way they "used to be". If it means they need to stay home or that company can't bring their dogs, then that's just how it has to be and I can't put pressure on them.

Other things mentioned that we need to work on:

1. Sit/Stay or Down/Stay - I need to firm up the stay part of it. I also have to practice doing it from the outside of the baby gate. The boys do it on carpet, but when it's different they don't respond as well or at all. Put a carpet tile inside the kitchen so it's not cold or slippery.
2. Desensitize them from the hat. Hubs put on a new hat yesterday and Basil just freaked out. I'm not sure who started it but they got into a fight over the excitement. Basil was on top of Guinness' back and was pulling on his ear until he yelped. Basil was punished for a minute by putting him the bathroom. Desensitize them individually: Put treats around it. Bend it, fold it, move it around and more TREATS. Put the hat on and remove it immediately: quick off on off on and more treats.
3. Again with the crazy barking when guests arrive - keep one dog behind the kitchen, keep the better listening dog outside. Keep feeding treat after treat when the company arrive. Tell him to sit/stay! He must have a job to do. Ask company to go along with the training by ignoring them as well. If he breaks the stay, make him come back and do it again.
4. Ideally of course I want to be able to answer the door and have the boyz sitting in their position and not moving an inch without my say so and NOT have to stand there feeding treats to them hoping he won't go crazy. One thing I was doing wrong was I was going from step 0 to step 5. I expected them to stay when I went outside and back in. Instead, I have start small with one step at a time. Work with one of them at a time since one seems to distract the other into breaking the stay.

It's a good thing I have a 4 day weekend to start working on all this.

"Boys Down"

In this book I'm reading, "Feeling Outnumbered? How to Manage and Enjoy your Multi-Dog Household" it talks about assigning your multiple dogs a group name. That way I can say "BOYS sit" or "BOYS wait" instead of "Basil wait Guinness wait". It's especially useful when you need both dogs to do something like "wait" before exiting a doorway.

First, each dog must know the command very well. In this case, it's "down". Now that they know the command. I just say "Boys down" and immediately they both went down, say "yes!" then give them a treat.



I did this several times and when I felt like they both understood they both had to go down in order to get the treat I rewarded them with a new toy to play with.



This is a double headed snake toy from Ellie Mae's mom. It's been a great toy because each dog can get one end of the toy. Basil who hogs toys can't hog both ends of this toy even though he'll try. Guinness gets an opportunity to play with one end while Basil hogs the other end and at least they are playing together and Basil can get used to the idea.

"DOWN"

“Down”

I do “down” with the boys when I get home from work, but before I feed them dinner. They seem to be more attentive when we train before dinner.

Because Guinness seems to already know “down” without a food lure or hand gesture, I’m concentrating on Basil first. We just taught Basil down last week using a food lure. When Renee was here, he didn’t know “down” without the food lure.

I put Guinness behind the baby gate and worked with Basil first.

Say “down”. Hesitate 2 seconds. Then hand gesture (food or no food lure) your fingers to the floor (don’t say “down). As soon as his belly touches the floor, say “yes!” and reward with food from the other hand.

Then throw a treat for him to get so he pops back up and walks back over. I did this with Basil maybe 12-15 times using no food lure (because we did that last week and he should know by now). I did it both sitting and standing but mostly standing since that would be ideal. Then finally, he did it without a hand gesture! When he did that, he got a jackpot of treats!

I repeated the same with Guinness except I would tell him “down” as he was walking back to me in order to get him to do down from a stand instead of a sit. Guinness is a little ahead of Basil, so he goes down immediately. He rolled over a couple of times thinking we were doing “bang”, but I just turned my back and ignored him. After 2-3 times of that, he caught himself and rolled back over and did a firm down stay. Then I took it a step further and we did down on the cold floor. Guinn would go down but pop right back up.

By day 2, Basil had it all down without hand gesture or food lure.

Next: "STAY"

Training: "Down" and lots of other things

Yay! We had another visit from our dog trainer Renee aka. the treat lady. She gave mom more things to do with us and we will get treats and praise for them! Yay!

Now, back to mom for the boring stuff. (((yaaawn))) Guinn and I are gonna go back to napping now after this long day.

A couple of things:

• Pick up the food bowls when the boys are done eating. We usually leave the empty bowls and although they are fed separately, they will go lick the others bowl.
  
• Order DAP online.
• Buy Rescue Remedy from a local vitamen store. Give the boys 4 drops/3x times daily.
• Tell Guinness "leave it" if he tries to eat tootsie rolls, but praise him for it. Don't treat him for it.
• When exiting/entering doorways/baby gate, put Guinness in a sit/stay or down/stay and let Basil go first. Then come back and release Guinness and let him out.
  
• Work with the boys separately until they are both good at the command.
  

Working on "Down". Ideally, we want to be able to get the boys to go "down" at a distance. If they are a few feet from us and for whatever reason we need them to get "down" quickly, we can ask them of that from a distance. That will be our goal. For now, we just need to teach them "down" reliably.

Say "down", hesitate 2 seconds and without using any words, hand gesture down to the floor. As soon as his chest/belly touches the floor, say "yes" (with enthusiasm) and treat right away. It's best to get them from a stand to down instead of sit to down. Also, get them off the food lure.

Next time: Our friend Domino is coming and Renee is going to see why Guinness is guarding mom against other dogs. It's probably because our mom is so cool!

The Dog Trainer

We have a new friend! Her name is Renee the dog trainer! Other pawrents and furfriends love her, so mom asked her to come to out to our house to teach mom a thing or two ;)

Some things mom has to do with us before Renee's next visit.

"SIT" for everything. Basil doesn't always sit as intuitively as Guinness does, so now mom has to work with Basil so he sits for everything.

"WAIT" before going in and out of entrances.

Mom's favorite is "LEAVE IT'. She has to work with us everyday, a few times a day for 3-5 minutes on "leave it".

Mom asked Renee to come because Guinness and I sometimes fight at the door and Guinness has been guarding mom from other dogs. I guess I have been guarding too ever since Guinness came to live at our house.

We look forward to seeing her again!