First night of puppy class

[kathiam]

Well we had our first night of puppy class. There were 4 puppies there Lily, a 5 month old English Mastif (that is one BIG pup ), a 4 month old chocolate lab, and a 3 month old Yellow lab/golden retriever mix.

It was really kind of funny the first 15 minutes of class is play time. The two labs chased each other around rolling and tumbling their way across the floor. The mastiff followed them around wagging her tail. Lily spent most of her time sniffing around the floor and when the labs got too rough with each other she found a big wall shelf with a stack of floor mats, climbed up and laid there watching the action.

The trainer told me that Lily is suffering from separation anxiety. I kind of figured that was the case though sometimes you need to hear it from someone else before it sinks in. I work from home so I usually keep her in my office with me or leave her out with my mother-in-law if I have a meeting and need to make sure it's not held up by a singing beagle.

Well the trainer told me that she needs to spend some time alone during the day to break the anxiety. I work 8:00-4:30 and my husband 6:00-2:30. So we are setting up an area in our finished room in the basement. I take her for a walk every morning and then will crate her from 8-11 when I take my lunch. I always walk her on my lunch so I will again walk her and play with her. She will go back into the crate from 12:00 until 3:00 when my husband gets home and then will leave her out with us for the rest of the night.

I am not sure who this will be harder on, Lily or me. I know it needs to be done as even when we are outside if I get too far away from her while she is tied up she howls and howls. She said it will probably take a few weeks of this routine before she starts getting better as she said beagles tend to be stubborn (really I hadn't noticed) lol.

We worked on sitting in class..which lily was already an ace at. Next week we will be working on heeling, which Lily needs a lot of work on so I am glad that will be up next.

[baker'smom]

That's great that it seems like the class was a good idea. Having an outsider say the same things you already know sometimes does indeed help realize them. As hard as it is to hear it. And I completely know what you are going through with the seperation anxiety. I was feeling bad about crating Baker so much. We have him crated from 7:30-12, walk for 1/2 hour and lunch with a dog walker, and then he is let out between 4:30 amnd 5 pm at night. We had started a week ago letting him sleep in bed with us, since I was feeling so guilty about crating him again at night, around 9:00pm or so. But it just made him more clingy and nervous when someone left the room. Not to mention the constant repositioning that he does during the night that kept us up. He did not want to go back to crating at night, at first. Now he's adjusted again after a couple days.

He's also like this on the weekends. We find we need to crate him during the day, or he won't sleep and gets really ornary. As hard as it is for me to crate him, we've found that the stability of it is really kinda comforting to him. Having that schedule is important. I guess just like human children.

I am sure that Lily will adjust beautifully. Good luck!

[RosCole]

Sounds like class went great! Glad to hear it after the day you had

She will adjust in time, I agree it will probably be harder on you. I have my summers off so the pups adjust to a new schedule with me home a lot of the time. Before September though, I ease them back into me being gone for so many hours so that when the time comes it is not all at once.

They do just fine.

[kathiam]

She didn't do so well yesterday, but better then I thought. The first 1 1/2 she howled constantly..then it was quiet for awhile until I got her at 11. Then when I put her back in at 12 she howled for 5 minutes and was quiet again until 2:00 when she howled for 10 minutes and then was quiet again until I took her out at 2:45.

Today she howled for about 15 minutes first thing..then was quiet until 10:30 and she howled for 5 minutes and was quiet until I went and got her at 11. So I think she is doing alright, and hopefully every day will get better.

We are taking her camping with us for the first time this weekend so that should be interesting to see how she handles that.

[kathiam]

Well we had our second night of class. We had to put our pups on a table and work them over. Had to grab their tails, look in there ears, play with their paws open their mouths. Our homework is to do this a few minutes every night to make sure they are used to being touched.

We also worked on stay, go, and come. We stood on one end of the room and had to have the pups sit on our left. Once the pup was sitting we showed them a treat and threw it out in front of us to the length of the leash. We held the leash tight and said stay. Then we loosened our grip on the leash and said go and allowed the pups to get the treat. Once they finished chewing we had to say the dogs name and come and real them in so that they were in front of us facing us and then say sit.

Lily did pretty good when it was her turn though she didn't want to sit still while the other pups had their turns so I had to constantly tell her to sit. At the end we all had to do it at once and Lily tried to go for the treat for the pup next to us instead of hers but I was able to pull her back before she snatched it up.

I have a hard time walking Lily as she is constantly pulling on the leash, so much so that she has stretched her collar out. The trainer has suggested that I get either a choke collar or a prong collar. Has anyone used either of those, I am wondering if one is better to use then the other?

The pups get 15 minutes of free play time. So far Lily hasn't seemed to keen on this as you can see in the first picture where she likes to spend her free time. In the second piture is the other pups in class are Pacer a male Yellow lab/golden retriever mix, Pandora a female chocolate lab, and Ruby a female English Mastiff. The third picture is of Lily checking Ruby out after class.

[deardaisy]

That Mastiff is 5 months?! Wow! All very pretty dogs though

Originally Posted by kathiam

I have a hard time walking Lily as she is constantly pulling on the leash, so much so that she has stretched her collar out. The trainer has suggested that I get either a choke collar or a prong collar. Has anyone used either of those, I am wondering if one is better to use then the other?

My vote is neither. I don't really see a reason to put a dog in unnecessary pain, and it can do damage to the dog after long periods of time. I watch 'It's Me or the Dog' from time to time, and Victoria Stillwell had owners put these collars around their own necks...needless to say it didn't feel very good. If a person thinks it feels terrible, a dog will as well. What she suggested, and what I think I've seen on these boards as well, is a Halti Head Collar.

You Tube

You Tube

There are other brands out there too..same type of collar though.
I want to get one for Seamus, as he has issues with pulling to. Unfortunately for me, I read on Victoia's Web site, some of these issues can arise from having a dog tied out in some way, because they are allowed to pull on that all they like. Seamus has a run that we put him out on for a couple hours everyday. I guess it's a little bit lazy of us.. but he still gets to go for daily walks (usually only one long one a day)..so I should probably work on that myself.
But, anyway, that's my opinion. Good luck with whatever you try!
Also glad to hear puppy school is going well. I keep wanting to enroll Seamus, but haven't gotten there yet...

[deardaisy]

Oh! How did the camping go?? We actually took Seamus on and overnight camping excursion over the weekend... it didn't go as well as I had hoped.. He seems to be a little bit too spoiled.... hated being outside so much... hated being outside in the dark... hated being in the tent...kept standing on us all night trying to look out the tent windows... and whined, whined whined. *sigh*
On the bright side, he did end up getting to play with a couple dogs. One, I'm not really sure of her breed, didn't really know what to make of playing with Seamus, but the other, Willow, had a ball with him. She was a Puggle (part Pug part Beagle) Sooo cute!
It makes me happy when he gets to pay with other dogs..it doesn't get to happen too often.

[kathiam]

Originally Posted by deardaisy

Oh! How did the camping go?? We actually took Seamus on and overnight camping excursion over the weekend... it didn't go as well as I had hoped.. He seems to be a little bit too spoiled.... hated being outside so much... hated being outside in the dark... hated being in the tent...kept standing on us all night trying to look out the tent windows... and whined, whined whined. *sigh*
On the bright side, he did end up getting to play with a couple dogs. One, I'm not really sure of her breed, didn't really know what to make of playing with Seamus, but the other, Willow, had a ball with him. She was a Puggle (part Pug part Beagle) Sooo cute!
It makes me happy when he gets to pay with other dogs..it doesn't get to happen too often.

It actually went a lot better then I thought. She did get herself tangled up on everything in the campsite with the leash but I expected that to happen. We luckily have a camper so we just took her crate with us and set it up in the camper so hopefully that was a comfort to her. She slept really good so I am thinking that it helped having that with. She didn't seem to mind being outside at all and would switch between laying in the sun, laying in the shade, and wandering around as far as her leash would let her to find sticks to chew on.

I also had her kong with us so I froze pb in it each night and gave that to her. There were a bunch of kids in the campsite next to us so she got excited every time they walked by and she would whine and cry to get at them. Other then that she did really good so hopefully she will continue to do well on future trips.

[kathiam]

LOL yes the Mastiff is only 5 months. That is certainly going to be a HUGE dog she is very sweet and well manered though. I had never used either of those collars before, so perhaps I will have to look into them more before I purchase one.

[RobChapman]

Originally Posted by kathiam

I have a hard time walking Lily as she is constantly pulling on the leash, so much so that she has stretched her collar out. The trainer has suggested that I get either a choke collar or a prong collar. Has anyone used either of those, I am wondering if one is better to use then the other?

Arn't Beagles known for that anyway. To do with thier keen nose. I use a harness and have trained my dog to heal using the stop back, start method.

That is when they pull stop, turn around without eye contact and take a few steps pulling your dog back. When they begin to walk in the same direction, turn again to face the direction you were orriginally going and praise with eye contact. and off you go.

It takes a while for the dog to realise what you want but they usually get it within 5 days of walking.

I think it is pure frustation of having to go back all the time that gets the message accross.

My latest puppy if 4 months and he has got it!!!!

They will allways pull off when they pick up a good sent to follow though!!!!