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Basil

#1 dog site for dogs & bipeds!

http://www.dogster.com/dogs/1164044

Guinness

#1 dog site for dogs & bipeds!

http://www.dogster.com/dogs/1164045

At the Park

What a nice day today! It was so warm and sunny dat maw and paw took us for a long walk along the river by some hispawric town. But first they make us pose for their "no no thats not your toy Basil" contraption that they always hold up. Oh how they make us grovel for walks!


Maw and us


Paw and us


Yay! Off we go!

This hispawric town is so strange. So many people walking around weely fast and saying Ohhhh so cutttee.

Guinness vs Pillow

Maw leaves this squishy throw pillow on the floor just so I can lay on it. When I see it, I bum rush it with my head and roll over and start playing with it. Maw just laughs and makes all sorts of sounds like "ohhh, cuuuuute, guiiinnnesss, soooo cute".

Me maw loves me. She comes over and rubs me belly.

Head bump in action!

Then my stinky brotha comes and gets involved.

Who ELSE Wears Cool Hats?

Meet Nadia and Jack! Brother and sister frenchies who joined Da Kewl Hat Club!


Bundled up and ready to go!



If you want a kewl hat, just message me. All proceeds go to FBRN.

"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"

Who Wears Cool Hats?!

WE WEAR COOL HATS!!!

A lady friend makes these and all proceeds go to FBRN.


Domino (blue)


Basil (green), Guinness (red), Ellie mae (purple)


Chunky monkey


Guinness decided to do a little shopping.


Guinness decided to help himself to some treats. Caughtcha!


Ellie was tuckered out already.


Argh I wrestle you to the ground!

Don't you wish you had a cool hat?