Dog Owner Chat v3 ~Open!~

[.muse.]

.

[Day Of Silence]

So something I found out today, was that our good friends believed their 3 month old puppy had been at the pet store too long to be trained, so he ended up not being potty trained, or trained at all, so they sent him back.
I really love them, but really?
How is three months too old when ours is one year?
I don't know.

And they're looking into getting another dog. It just scares me that they've been looking into a husky x german shepherd puppy. They couldn't handle a chill Chihuahua x shitzu, I can not imagine them getting another puppy, let alone a working breed one.

[FlynnEugene]

Well I found 2 wonderful jobs that allow me to bring Izzy to work with me which makes both of our lives a lot easier. It helps her with being calm in a hectic environment especially since she will soon be a therapy dog and it makes me happy because I can bring her with me. So I am working out our local Teen Center as the director for the art department, which means I will be doing art with the younger teens and the directer of the teen center said it would be really nice if I brought Izzy. My other job is at the animal shelter not only doing kennel work but training the dogs.

At the moment I am pet sitting 4 dogs, a rabbit and 2 cats as well as my other two jobs and working with Izzy. I have been incredibly busy and the Akita (Shima) I am pet sitting seemed to have hurt her hip really bad to the point where she doesn't even want to walk while she was playing with the other dogs. So I am going to call her owner in the morning to see what she wants me to do. Poor girl

[Day Of Silence]

That's awesome Ella Bear!
I wish our town had a teen centre.

A question for those who train in shelters, how does it work?
Do you go there on a daily basis and work with x number of dogs while you're there, or just focus on one. Is it just a couple of days a week, are you the only one.
I'd love to get a training program going at one of the local shelters, but I'm not sure how other shelters run theirs. Any help?

Epic has been doing really good at training. We've removed the lure for her 'spin', 'twist', 'reload' (wrap or right finish, thanks Mac for the cue!), and 'eight' (figure eight through legs).
We've also incorporated training in play time. We started with basic behaviours like sit, down and stand, then added the rest of her tricks and strings of tricks.

My mom made a comment like 'are you taunting her? Oh, right, you call that training' and it got my nerves. 'Leave it' has been very useful, unfortunately I don't seem to have the support I thought I had from my parents. My dad was constantly saying how Epic should be let off leash, and I was over mothering her by keeping her on leash. He's gone now, but is coming back in a week and a half and I'm hoping he won't come up with something else he thinks I'm messing up on.
Epic has now been happily off leash for about a week now (not all the time), and has only refused a come once when I had timed it wrong and she was actually taking a dump. She's come off food, dogs, play, toys, interesting/weird random stuff, a bunch of dog excitement and a new environment.
Hopefully if we go hiking, we can work on her recall in new environments (starting on leash), but at the moment we're stuck here.

[.muse.]

.

[The Winter Soldier]

.... nevermind

[MacGyver]

@DoS, You're welcome for the cue! :'D We're finally getting tighter finishes over here - woot woot. Still having trouble with heeling but a friend of mine has offered to do Skype lessons and kind of try to help me out (we were going to meet up but Dixie gets so nervous in new environments initially, and with new people, so we're just going for Skype for now). I know it's gotta be something I'm doing wrong and it certainly helps to have a pair of trained eyes to watch and direct!

- - -

Dat muscle. Dat shine. Dem wabbit ears.



-throws all dog books out the window- I don't understand this creature

[FlynnEugene]

@DayofSilence well the last shelter I worked at the volunteers were only allowed to walk the dogs unless they wanted to take the dogs to the local dog obedience school every other night. I usually took the dogs and got paid for training them but they usually just have the volunteers walk the dogs and everyone who worked there would help with training and cleaning the kennels for all animals. Luckily my towns animal shelter is very well tuned with the obedience club so workers from there try and do their best to train the dogs.

Now for the new shelter I work at I had to be interviewed to be a trainer. Basically I had to prove I knew how to train a dog on my own. If I didn't they would just have me do kennel work. Although I passed the test ( They had me use a random dog and show them what I would do if I were to teach it x commands). There are only 5 of us who are trainers and so they have me working several days training/ walking dogs and the rest doing kennel work and then whatever spare time I have I can train more and we keep it on a chart. So I mean every shelter is different it is all based off of how you want to run the program. I would say talk to the shelter about what you were interested in doing and then maybe set up a program. The shelter I work at now had us take a class and take the test because they wanted to make sure there wasn't any dominance training they only wanted clicker.

[not a talking cat]

Do you own a dog?:
Yep! I own a Pomeranian mixed with a fluffy chihuahua <3 Her name is Princess.

Favorite dog breed?:
Australian Shepherds :3

Tell us about your dog(s), if you have any!:
Princess is small, but has a very playful mind. She loves messing around with us by
nibbling at our hands and jumping onto our faces\laps. We love her dearly and would
be so upset if she were to die.
Princess actually gave birth to 3 healthy puppies 5 weeks ago.
Two males and one female; their names are Loki, Charlie and Baby.
Loki is the black one, Charlie is the light caramel one and Baby is the white one.
As of now, their personalities are developing rather quickly. Loki is a big bully to
Baby, Charlie is super playful and loves to play fight, and Baby whines a lot and is scared of everything.

Pictures of your dog(s):
I don't have any pictures of Princess, unfortunately,
but I do have pictures of the puppies when they were first born!


[sorry the quality is so bad. we were so excited we took the photos quickly so they're a bit blurry cx]

managed to get some pictures from my uncle. here's the ugly yet adorable bab, princess

[eleutheromania]

when these two get together, after a hour, it ends like this lol. Piper manages to tire out Loki and herself but they never seem to stay asleep in one spot for to long either. Weirdos. Update on the two big dogs, Rosie is working on heel with me, she's doing rather well. Haven't taken many pictures of her because every time I try, she walks off like she knows. I think I have a camera shy dog. Lol. Scout is just Scout, big head is simply sleeping inside most days since its soo dang hot outside now.