Hello again guys. A few q's.

1. For those of you that have been following my posts you will know my main issue with Daisy was recall in the presence of other dogs. This is ALMOST sorted now. I dont know if its because she has ran off so many times she knows 90% of the dogs that frequent this field in the mornings and is thus less excited (i hope its not this option) or the magic of mature cheese has worked wonders. Now-a-days when she locks her sights on a dog and the ears rise, a "Daisy, No!, Come Here" will usually work. She'll have a little think about it but usually chooses the option resulting in cheese

But as i say, this is only sometimes, even though the ONLY time she gets the cheese she so dearly loves is upon a successful recall she is becoming increasingly less excited about it and i worry that in a matter of days / weeks that the temptation of cheese is going to be significantly less than a new dog. She's raw fed so lil meaty treats are not that exciting for her anymore. Im wondering now that i have the foundations of a recall, how am i supposed to strengthen this so that she doesnt think about weather to come back, or comes back more enthusiastically ?

2. I say she is RAW fed, but as i have not yet ordered from Landywoods she is only RAW fed while there's Raw meat about...obviously. What i mean by this is that i buy what i can afford from the butchers on a Friday to last the week. Sometimes i get it wrong and we run out too soon, sometimes im too damn poor and cant buy a weeks worth. So sadly, sometimes she will be back on the Wag *shudder*. Point being is that since the raw meat and bones have been a frequent part of her diet. Her stools REALLY smell. I have never been that squemish about picking up her poo even when it had a slighty pong to it but this smell make my stomach turn when i bend over to pick it up.

Im not really complaining about the smell...its poo, not air organic air freshener but i worry what this sudden change in smell is reflecting on Daisy's internal workings. Any ideas ?

Also, since the meat and bones have been introduced regulaly. She no longer goes for 1 poo at a time. Take this morning for example:

- 6:00am and the last time she ate was 12hrs ago (540g of Lamb). I let her out in the garden while i smoke my cigarette and drink my coffie. 1 stool, standard, stinky but oh well.

- 6:30am time for walk and no sooner do we get onto the path, poop2. Shes squatted there for a good min or even 2, long enough for me to get bored and sit on the wall to wait for her and two TINY little 'pebbles' arrive...seems pathetic for the amount of time and effort she put into releasing them. As i am bending over to pick these up...she's busy squatting 2 meters down the road again !!! Remember, she still hasnt eaten anything since 6pm last night, where is all this coming from ???

-8:00am Back from walk and she decides no, im not going to follow you upstairs, im going into the garden to bless your grass once more !!!

She still holds it well, no accidents in the house but it used to be 1 meal = 1 poop. Granted the only issue this causes is that i have to buy 3-4 times the amount of poop bags but at 45p for 100 its hardly tragic, again, just worry that something is wrong inside !

3. Daisy now walks to heel perfectly. The only time she will pull is if she sees a patch of grass up ahead and she needs to 'go'. Ill forgive her urgency in this case . She'll even walk to heel off the lead if you ask her. Although it was me that did 90% of the heel training Daisy will walk with Theresa to heel just aswell, even though she insists on using the 'here' word instead of 'heel' .

HOWEVER. When Theresa, Daisy and I are on a walk together, we reverse 2 months to the pulling machine she once was! WTH !?! When you say heel she'll ignore you. If you stop and say heel she'll get back into position and then as soon as you begin to move again, back to the pulling This is the case weather its me or Theresa that is holding the lead.

If one of us drops back slightly so that that individual is behind Daisy, she gets better, not perfect but walks to heel naturally needing a reminder every min or so.

The obvious answer to me is that she does not see one of us as 'the pack leader' (apologies for Ceaser quote) but she will obey ALL taught commands with either one of us. Sit, Stay, Down, Stand, Round, Hold, Leave, Here, Shoo, Come... ALL executed perfectly when commanded by either one of us, even if commanded by total strangers. She just blindly refuses to walk to heel when me and Theresa are next to eachother.

Any Ideas?

4th and Finally (well done for making it this far). I have a real time exercising Daisy properly in the mornings. She never really fetched outside (does it brilliantly inside) but atleast i could throw the ball and she'd run over to investigate but now she knows the deal and doesnt even run over to it. SO, i bought a frisbee, new toy, new experiences, NEVER played fetch with a frisbee indoors. Started off slow. Clicker trained her "get it" (bite and hold) and "let me" (give to me and release) and then treated / praised like mad when she retrieved it. First day she properly fetched it, just so happened to be a day we had organised to go on an adventure in the new forest with a load of friends. One of these friends has a barmy GSD, doesnt fetch but loves playing with Daisy and they will play with eachother untill both can no longer stand !

I read somewhere that it is important not to let your dog grow bored of a toy, so if i was throwing it and she was paying little - no attention to it i should put it away. ALSO, always try and stop the game before she gets bored. One of the friends on this walk was really loving the fact that Daisy was finally fetching. More to the point, was Ignoring Tigger (GSD) for the sake of chasing frisbee. My god, we were there for AGES, throwing the frisbee, she NEVER got bored. We stopped because our arms were tired from throwing teh damn thing. Great, she fetches frisbee with enthusiasm !!!

So next day off the the normal dog park and i begin to throw frisbee, not recieved with the same enthusiasm but still, fetches consistently as long as there was a 3-5min break between throws to allow for obsessive sniffing of grass.

This morning however, threw it, she couldnt care less. Nope, sniffing the grass was MUCH more interesting.

Again, WTH people ? She goes to that field EVERY morning and EVERY evening. She knows the dogs that go there and she knows whats in the bushes, over the fences ect ect. But still, does not matter what i bring to that field, all she wants to do is potter about at a snails pace, sniffing the grass. Not that i have an issue with her sniffing the grass its just its not all that tiring for her and its frustrating to see her come from that park, calm and collected, not even out of breath because she blindly refuses to exceeed 2mph !

On one hand i feel well if she was lacking the exercise and was craving it then she'd take the opportunity to run about when given it. When we first moved here and started going to that park. We'd let her off the lead and she'd instantly just run, full-speed up and down the field once or twice before coming back to us and commensing sniffing. These days you wouldnt notice the difference with her on or off the lead. So if she doesnt want to exercise and all her heart desires is to sniff the wonderful grass, then so be it. Happy days.

On the other hand i feel as if i am / have doing / done something wrong and have not shown her the way properly. So she craves exercise but does not know that the park is the place to do it. Maybe in our efforts to teach her recall, we have made her think its the high-speed running we dont want (as every time she ran full speed at a dog, we were telling her no, and come back).

When shes at home after a jolly good walking she wont do much but lay down on her side and close 1 eye. Keeping the other on me, making sure i dont go into the Kitchen. It seems to be a rule with Daisy that i am not allowed to be in the kitchen un-supervised just incase there is any food about that i may forget to give her so i dont think she is depressed or 'shut down'.

Sorry for the epic sized post. I thought i may aswell put all q's into the same post rather than littering the forum with all my posts.

Thank you for just reading this, let alone any replies.

__________________
Handle every stressful situation like a dog; If you cannot eat it or play with it, simply pee on it and walk away !

hi,am not much use for all your questions but the one with the pebble poos could be that she needs some pulped veg with her meals, not a lot, and you can adjust it according to her poo, too much and she will get the runs, not enough and she may be constipated. mine have firmer poos when they have chicken carcasses then when they have the raw meat. as for the pulling on the lead, my two pull more when they are out together so like you i assume its the leader thing.

This sounds exactly like Cola, I finally got her interested in "playing ball" a few days ago but now I throw the ball and shes like "no thanks, wheres my treat???"

Also the same at the park, although eventually she will chase the bugs in the long grass if no-one is around. But after around 5 minutes of walking having arrived at park I turn around and shes still sniffing the grass at the gate where I parked

This is I guess you could call my regular park also, we are there twice a day most days so she knows every patch of grass there is! However I now take her to the park at "peak times" (straight after school drop off etc) so Im fairly sure there are always plenty of dogs to play with.

Indoors she is the same, will sleep on the sofa opposite me on red alert incase I decide to make a move without her! If she hears the kitchen gate go ............ whooosh other than that nothing.

She doesnt really get excited with her kong anymore, she just slopes off the sofa - stretches out for around 30 seconds and plods off to find it!

Anyhoo cant really help but can sympathise! If you can try taking her out when the park is more busy! LOL

The recall sounds as if its going well. The idea behind a perfect recall is to never call the dog if its associated with something it doesn't want to do. When it's home time, never ever ever ever recall your dog, just walk up to her and put the lead on and head home/to the car. The same applies to bathtime or nailtrimming time. The art of a great recall is that the dog comes back because she knows its going to be better than what they are chasing after. Once you have her attention, she will no longer be thinking about what she was running to, the beauty of dogs with the inability to have anything other than a one track mind.

So, to strengthen your recall, make sure she gets lots of praise for coming back. A pat, a rub, a 'good girl' is just as much of a reward as the cheese you are using. Which, by the way, sounds like you are using too much, you'll need to start getting stingy with that cheese. A substitute of praise is just as much of a reward once you start weaning the dog off treats.

As for your dog's pooing habits, it sounds a lot like she is constipated to me and that she isn't getting the right stuff to break it up in her digestive system. I'm pretty sure that there's nothing wrong with her insides, probably just a lack of something in her diet. Try adding some fibre to it, along with the vegetables that sleeptalker suggested that will help break it up and allow her to get it all out in one go!

As for the park, you have to take into consideration that other dogs will leave their scent so that same blade of grass that you see her sniffing every day may look the same to you, to her, its a completely different blade of grass with a whole load of new stuff. She probably looks at your copy of Heat every week and thinks the same thing, lol "its the same paper, smells the same, looks the same, whats so different about it?", so theres no need to worry about the grass sniffing, its like a brand spanking new mag for her to read according to her nose.

As for the ball (and frisbee) games, the trick is to make sure that you are enjoying them. I look after a 16 year old border collie once every few months and her owner said she never chases the ball because she was too old. On her first walk, I managed to take a tennis ball, bounce up and down like a loony, wave it in front of her and she got very interested in it to the point that she was barking at me, I threw it and she growled at the thing the entire time she was running towards it.

Basically, if you don't get her in the mood to play fetch, theres a good possibility that she just simply won't be in the mood. Make wacky noises, pretend your 6 again and bounce around playfully, she should eventually join in and literally beg you to throw it. I'd also suggest alternating the toys, without knowing the breed, I can't really suggest an ideal game to play with her as different breeds were bred for different purposes. For example, you won't get many sniffer dogs playing fetch, just like you won't get many gundogs to play Sniff n Seek.

Another liklihood is that if the dog is used to getting treats after fetching and you are taking her out soon after a meal, the treat won't be as appetising to her if she is running on a full stomach. A hungry dog is an easy dog to train.

Hmm, i have tried to make recall 100% rewarding. Saying that, i do ask her to come when its home time But then i put her on the lead and if i walk a few steps without pulling then she often gets a treat. You recon its worth making a new word for recall ?

I have read this everywhere but...i just cant see the excitement in Daisy when i give praise. She is always just trying to get away form me. Once she brings the frisbee back theres no reason for her to stay if i dont have a treat so shes off to what she was sniffing when i threw it. Indoors she loves belly scratches. She'll lay there for as long as you like but outside, if you try, she'll bite your arms. Not hard, but as she has learnt that biting us always gets us to get up and walk away instantly, ignoring her, allowing her to get back to what she was doing.

Nice, ill give that a go today as i have plenty of vegetables i promise myself ill eat one day and never do.

Tried this, this morning and making strange noises seems to put her off but jumping about like a loon and pretending the frisbe is the best thing in the world and she certianly cant have it seems to get her interested. Not overly, but thanks for that . She'll start grabbing for it if i put it low enough. I had previously taught her "get it" which is a command for 'hold in your mouth whatever is immediately infront of your face' and i use this as a way of telling if she wants it. I dont throw it untill she bites and lets go of it.

Shes a 15month old Labrador (pics in profile) She has a ball on a rope, frisbee, big bouncy ball( just a lil smaller than a football ) none of which she has shown a particular interest in so we stopped buying more toys. Oh and a huge knot of rope, but she teared the first layer up the first day we got it and never touched it since.

Argh i read this and afterwards it is so obvious. Yea we got for our penaltimate walk about 1.30 -2.00hrs after eating. Tht way she poops it out almost instantly and has an empty stomach by the time we reach the park. I suppose though treats still arent as effective the other side of meal time. I did once try getting her food ready, putting it on the floor and then taking her out. Figured as i always get her to do a few tricks before giving her food and when the bowls on the floor she is PERFECT , thought id tranfer this behaviour outside but she DID NOT like being taken out when there was food on the floor, that was a nightmare of a walk lol.

THanks for the lengthy reply

__________________
Handle every stressful situation like a dog; If you cannot eat it or play with it, simply pee on it and walk away !