Dog Handling

SIMPLY DOG MANAGEMENT

As I have gone along with Dog Training some things become obvious. Things that I think everyone will know, I find that a lot of people don't know..... such as......

Restricting the space available to dogs makes them feel secure. The use of crates, kennel and runs, chain-ups, etc is not a punishment it is a way of helping your puppy/dog feel happy and safe.

Teaching your dog to walk on lead is not denying them exercise or stopping them from having freedom, it is a great way to bond with your dog and get quality exercise for you both

Putting on a muzzle, wearing a harness in the car attached to a seat belt, using easy leader and walking harness. Everyone thinks these are horrible things to do to the dog, but instead they are great games that the dog learns about. Just think about the dogs doing kiwi finding in the bush. They have a wonderful life and they hunt their little hearts out and are rewarded handsomely. They are working in muzzles. I went and watched the Greyhounds racing in Cambridge a little while back and the muzzles weren't bothering the racing dogs either. I am actually of the opinion that dogs love racing. They all look happy to me. Guide Dogs for the Visually Impaired wear working harnesses which doesn't seem to bother them either. It is a great challenge to teach your dogs about restraints and muzzles and make them learn how to be happy and contented while they are in a restrained situation. With this in mind Alex Jones and I are going to be running a course at Dog Sports Rotorua to teach people and their dogs how to use all the restraints and restrictions that we can think of. We think this will help people to understand the kind of controls they can physically have over their dogs. Using management tools and skills is not an 'instead of' training it is 'and with training'. Managing your dog and training your dog go hand in hand as the skills you need to make the best of your canine family member. I have a training system which I use that involves multiple lengths of long line for specific learning purposes. We will examine how this works on the course as well.

Incidentally I consider Alex Jones the most skilled young Dog Handler I have met. She works continually with dogs in her capacity as Adoptions Assistant and Kennel Manager for the SPCA in Rotorua as well as being a Field Officer. As soon as the paperwork is completed she will be a Warranted Animal Welfare Inspector having passed the examinations needed to achieve that title.

I consider her general knowledge, down to earth capabilities and exceptional ability to respond to dog behavior as the best I have ever seen. I know she will go on to have a huge animal training future in Animal Welfare and training animals. I am very happy to work alongside and hopefully assist Alex to achieve her goals.

So please contact me if you think you may like to be part of the course. It will be limited to 12 people; however, we will run two courses if necessary.

The program will run as follows:

Sunday 10a.m. start. Looking at the equipment. We will run through all the equipment we have available. We will supply a written catalogue of the gear and its uses.

11a.m. the team will break in two with half going with Alex for an hour and half staying with me. I will be doing chains, leashes, crating and long lines. Alex will be doing halters muzzles and easy leaders.These sessions will be hands on, putting equipment on dogs using the gear. Best means to train a dog to accept the gear etc.

Lunch at 12 o'clock either BYO or there will be a steak sandwich on the barbecue for those who want it. $5 for lunch with salad.

1p.m. the teams will swap. Those who were with Alex before lunch will be with me and vice versa.

2p.m. Walking the dog. Everyone will be given a piece of equipment and asked to walk a dog on it. We will then do corrections with each handler.

3p.m. Question time. Then an obstacle session where we use long-lines to achieve a game with a dog.

Finish about 4p.m.

Cost for non Club members $50. Club members $25.

Give it a go. Challenge yourself Build your knowledge of dog handling. Phone or txt or email me for a booking. The date is not set and will only be set when we have sufficient numbers and can settle on a day that suits everyone.

LOSING A FAMILY PET

It is that time in my life again where there are animals who needed to be euthanized due to old age, illness and their quality of life going down the gurgler. I am not one of those people who keep their animals hanging on until they no longer cope. I like to get ahead a bit but I do wait until their quality of life is just starting to fail before I make that decision. Every time I get a new pet animal I say to myself that one day I am going to have to 'bite the bullet' and make a decision to put this one to sleep as well. Can I handle that? If I can't I shouldn't consider having the animal. In earlier times the question was 'Can I shoot this animal if I need to put it out of its misery'. We are luckier now with Veterinary available to us all and the wonderful peaceful demise available to our family pets is so comforting.

Over forty years of adult pet ownership I have had to bear the deaths of 7 dogs 2 cats, a pony and a goat. So about every three years there will be a need to steel myself for losing a pet if my current averages continue. Given that I still have 3 dogs 1 cat 1 donkey 1 pet cow and 3 pet goats it certainly is not over yet. I cry every time, some times for days. I curse myself for hurting myself by getting animals and then eventually I think of all the wonderful days I had with that animal and I realise that every day with every one of my animals counts a lot. I try to make every day special for all of my pet animals. I make sure they always have good warmth and shelter, that their food supply is good and consistent, that their physical fitness and veterinary care is up to date. That their needs for worming, fleas and exercise are a top priority, but most of all I make sure they get that special hands on from me. That is what they want. They want a hug and a contact and to be told they are wonderful and that you couldn't live without them. They just love that.

My latest deaths are Buffy the little Tabby cat that Julie and I acquired when we moved to Hamurana. She had the most awful snuffles as a kitten and was visiting the vet constantly, however at approaching 17 she was just old and a bit doolally and her kidneys had gone on her. We could have kept her alive with pills and injections but hey she didn't do anything but sleep and eat and the other was starting to appear in spots other than her kitty litter tray, so she was ready to go.

AND Midge the Staffi x pigdog I found on the side of the road on March 1st, 15 plus years ago. She was an amazing animal. She was never the underling, she was a very dominant boss dog. She always did exactly what she wanted to do while persuading me that it was what I wanted her to do.

For most of her life she fed herself. She would escape and go down to the lakeshore at Hamurana and bring back a dead possum/rabbit - road kill, the older and more run over the better. She thrived on it. It was inevitable on a walk that she would find something dead and carry it proudly all the way home, not allowing the other dogs anywhere near it. Then she would choose a spot in the garden and lie there and demolish it and look like a very rolly dog for a couple of days and then she would be off on the hunt again. Her other endearing habit was killing swans as they swam. She would swim out all innocence and then latch on to one break its neck, bring it back to shore flapping a bit. She would head for a willow infested unreachable part of the shore and she would hang it in a tree where -unless I put my waders on - I could not get to it. Then day by day on the walk she would go back and demolish a bit more of it. Realising that it is an offence for my dog to kill wildlife on the lake I promptly muzzled her when I found that training it out of her was not working. This was not 100% effective as she found that in the cygnet season (baby swans) she could whack them over the head with the plastic muzzle and nose them back to shore to the same patch of willow where I couldn't get at them and hang them out to dry and smell a bit before demolishing them on one of her escapee forays to the lake. I was very grateful that she did finally train out of those habits and stuck with road-kill and dead fish found on the shore.

Midge was such a renegade that I started out training her in formal Obedience. I didn't think that she would every do Agility or Fly, so we did a sport that I had previously found very boring and I learnt to enjoy it. My tutor was a lovely woman Jenny Thompson, she was very patient as Midge and I were pretty hopeless. Then we entered an Obedience Competition and won Special Beginners. I was so stoked. I have been a firm believer in Obedience type lessons for dogs every since. It is slow, it is painstaking but it is very effective. Without Midge I would never have persevered with Obedience. Midge learnt Flygility. She was not fast but she was consistent and made it to FD (Flygility Dog) title. I was also doing Agility with her. She had her moments, when she was good she was bloody marvelous but her off days were very off. Unfortunately she was classed as a Maxi, which meant extremely high jumps. These days she would have been a midi and her heights would have been more suitable. Eventually with the manic training I was doing and competing most weekends, Midge's cruciate broke down in her left back leg.

The vet told me it was the worst cruciate ligament injury he had seen and that I needed to have a $1200 operation or she would have a shriveled leg that she carried for the rest of her life. She was 5 years old. She had worked for three years. As a stray she didn't have the greatest dietary start in life so I felt the injury, in hindsight, was predictable. Believe me I could not afford to get that operation.

I went to the library and looked up the Vet section and learnt about cruciate and read that there was new treatment using Glucosamine Sulphate and Chondroitin but they didn't tell me what it was or how to use it. I sensibly (don't know why) went to the medical part of the library where there was a book on research on natural cures. Sure enough there was a chapter on GSC. It made recommendations of the dose rate to use and how to over supply the body - flood the body in fact with GSC and then stop the treatment. Green lipped mussel was also talked about and Omega 3. This was all to do with keeping athletes going who suffered tendon injuries. I thought 'why not' so away I went and found the capsules in the Natural Health Shops and the recommended doses of calcium as well. I spent six months feeding Midge a mixture of all of the above in fairly high doses. Slowly she stopped limping. I did a lot of massage and I restricted her exercise level. I rested her totally for about 2 months, literally tying her up to stop her moving around. Then four months of little by little increasing the exercise. Twelve months later it was quite hard to detect the injury. If you knew about it you could see it. I never did Agility with her again. It would have been tempting fate really. She did manage during her career, a 3rd place at the big Taupo Summer Champs 2002 in Starters against the best competition in NZ. It was the day of my 50th birthday. I continued to do Flygility with her and she made FD. Of late she has been doing Veteran NALA and Veterans Club Competition at Dog Sports Rotorua and loving it. She had a very aggressive cancer of the bladder/kidneys. I ran her in her final NALA veterans and then put her peacefully to sleep. A stronger more willful dog you would never meet. She was the Matriarch of my pack. Bless you Midge sleep well you taught me so much MIDGE FD -1999 - 2014 RIP . (note from Deb - find Midge's final Agility NALA Vets run on our facebook page, certainly an amazing old dog).