Aha!

[flick]

We kept Jodie on the same food as she'd been having at the rescue place, because we didn't want to change too much and we figured that they'd make a bit of money if we bought it from them.

Berners are supposed to be quite food-focused, so we were slightly surprised that, although she loves her training treats and her in-the-crate-only Bonios, it would take her several hours to get through her actual food. Bizarrely, she seemed to be keener on the dry part of it than on the wet.

We were nearly out of the canned food that came with her, and (whilst Approved By Vets) mostly cereal with some fish thrown in didn't sound terribly interesting (plus, ew, fish breath). So the other day Mike bought a couple of different cans from the supermarket to see what she might like better.

You can see where this is going, right?

This evening, she had food from a tin labelled "Big Dog! Big Meat!" with an actual picture of a Berner on the label. The bowl was clean in about five minutes. She keeps going back to check if it's magically refilled. I think that the remaining can of Chappie is going to go to the back of the shelf and be labelled 'for emergencies only'.

Two more days and she can come off the lead! We're terribly excited, and are planning a badger- and rabbit-free route home to try her out on on the last part of her walk.

Comments

[birguslatro]

Catching up on your breaking-in-the-dog news. It seems you're getting there ok! House still standing, mostly.

I remember you were thinking of getting two dogs to begin with. A second, younger dog later is apparently a lot less hassle, as old dog teaches the younger dog where the boundaries are. And of course they'd be company during the night.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Couple of things...

We only use the wet food when there's a stomach upset. The dry kibble vanishes but they are picky. Duck for the win with ours. Then again Labs are notoriously unfussy.

Tips for the first off-lead stuff. I'm sure you're practising all the usual 'come' stuff in the garden. I found with Tyson that it helped to have a bag of treats that make a good rattling noise on me and a spare tennis ball. So if he got over excited on our first walks he'd come as soon as he thought there was food or a ball in the offing.\

DO NOT chase after her if she runs away, that turns it into a fun game. Stand still and rattle the treats show the ball and that will look like a more fun game.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

The food she's had today was chicken. I chose it on the completely arbitrary basis that it was the one she moved towards in a somewhat-dimily-lit room. We've got a duck and rabbit to try as well.

She comes pretty well for me, and her training treats are in a nice rattly mini-realy-useful-box. She doesn't come so well to Mike, but she's better when I'm not there, which is when it's really important.

As for chase, she's a herding dog: she'll run along for a couple of dozen yards and then pounce down on the floor to wait and see what you do next. We play this game deliberately in the field, after/before the boys are in it, so she knows the drill. No interest whatsoever in balls, sticks or whatever.

Given how she is generally, I think we'll be fine with recall unless there's a badger smell. (This may be related to the fact that her first walk with us, in the pissing rain, involved walking past the spot where a roadkill badger had been dumped a few days before. It was the *best*thing*ever* for rolling in, and she's still rather keen!)

We've got a good one, tbh. She's superbly trained. F'r'ex', it wasn't until today when Mike said "Apparently, we should always make her go through gates and doors after we do, so she knows that we're in charge" that I realised why we have trouble getting her to go into kissing gates: we've been asking her to go first so that we can be sure not to trap her tail in the gate as it swings shut....

[daveon.livejournal.com]

As an aside, while we did formal puppy classes with Tara, we got a lot out of going to formal obedience training with Tyson even though he came with all the 'features installed' - it helps with formalizing some of your 'words' for when you're interacting.

[timill]

Puppy classes aren't just about training the puppies, after all.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

At this moment, Bren is on minced chicken and veggies, with the odd raw chicken wing and dried chicken foot thrown in, but he is allergic to practically every meat going.

However, given a choice I feed a good quality dry food like Burns or James Wellbeloved.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Her dry food is James Wellbeloved, and we're going to stick with that. Particularly as our local horses'n'dogs'n'hunting shop just had a special offer on it!