 |
|
|
 |
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
 |
Expect obedience behaviour at all times and positively reinforce such behaviour at all times.
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Barnaby and his Blog
Barnaby, a gorgeous and well tempered Labradoodle, was a guest of Royvon, Surrey for six weeks. Barnaby was only three months old when he first arrived, and although he was much too young for the residential programme, his mum found herself in an unexpected pickle just after he was purchased and needed a place for him to stay until she was ready to bring him home. This was not a problem for the Surrey Team, however, as Jackie, the Surrey Training Supervisor was eager to personally take on the puppy challenge in addition to all her other tasks and duties.
Barnaby lived with Jackie and her rescue dog, Krissie at the school. The following Barnaby's Blog excerpts and links to full journal entries are a testament to both the Royvon Training Team (most especially Jackie!) and the puppy shaping methods now offered as a Royvon specialty service.
For more information on puppy development, learning and behaviour shaping, visit the new Royvon puppy web site, www.trainyourpuppy.co.uk ... and read on...
October 16th 2006, Monday
Had a great night’s sleep last night, I’ve had an eventful few days. I left my mummy yesterday and a nice lady called Lisa who gave me lots of cuddles and kisses took me away in her car, she brought me straight to a new place where another lady, Jackie, also gave me even more cuddles and kisses. I haven’t quite got the hang of these cuddles and kisses, I keep trying to give them to the two ladies but I get a little excited and keep using my teeth to give kisses, the ladies are not always prepared for my ‘cuddles’, when they give me cuddles they both use their arms and hands, I’m trying to copy them and use my two front legs and paws but they don’t seem to like that very much, I must admit that I get excited easily and its hard to keep my back feet on the ground when I try and give them cuddles.
I’m only a little puppy; it’s my 3 month birthday tomorrow. I am already getting used to the new place I live. I have my kennel, it’s a wire crate and when I go in there I have some toys to play with, not the same toys that I play with outside of my crate, Jackie said these are my special toys just for when I’m in my crate. I have a teething ring, a soft toy to snuggle up to and big plastic bone with little bumps on it, it feels good when I chew on it, makes my gums feel better, they’ve been sore lately, ever since a couple of my tiny teeth fell out to make room for my ‘big’ teeth. I heard that this will happen until I’m about 7 months old, hope I have plenty of teething toys to help me through this; I would hate to start having to teethe on the nice leather couch over there.
October 18th 2006
What a great place. I have found out that the place I’m living at is called Royvon Dog Training School , I’ve seen other dogs going for walks on their leads and the trainers are telling them words like heel and sit, no one has done this with me yet but I did hear someone say that I am a little too young for obedience training, they wont put me in the kennels where all the other dogs are, I’m glad about that really, I walked past there earlier today and all the dogs started to bark a lot, it frightened me a bit but Jackie just patted my head and said “Don’t worry Barnaby, they’re just saying hello”, I’m not so sure but she didn’t seem to be worried….I have learned that Barnaby is my name, I wasn’t quite sure about that but for the last few days there have been a few people that keep saying “Barnaby”, they always say it in a nice friendly tone and sometimes they get down on the ground while they’re saying it like they want to play with me, not really sure what that’s about but I have realized that if I then run to them I get lots more cuddles and kisses, sometimes I get a nice little treat like a piece of chicken and everybody is happy, so yes, my name must be Barnaby.
October 20th 2006
I’m so proud of myself, I wanted to do what I see the older dogs doing when they are on a lead so I keep sitting down, Jackie, Jayne and Ian keep saying “good sit” and patting my head when I do this. Then while I was outside I was walking next to Jackie, I stayed close to her and she said “good heel” so I carried on walking next to her, she kept telling me I was a good boy and then when she stopped walking I sat down……I DID IT, I DID IT…..I did what the big dogs can do.
October 21st 2006
Today I went out with Lisa; Jackie says it is important that Lisa and I spend time together as we will be living together in about 3 weeks, I like being with Lisa, we had lots of fun at the lake and I got to meet a few other dogs, they were all older than me. There is another dog at Royvon called Krissie ; she lives with Jackie all the time. Every morning and every night we play together, I have learned that biting her ears is not as much fun for her as it is for me so I don’t bite her ears any more….well I do but not so hard.
I’m not sure about going in the car, once I’ve been in there for a little while though it’s easy for me to go to sleep.
I’m meeting a lot of people too, I’m a little scared of some people, don’t know why because everyone is very friendly and they are always happy to see me, I keep getting told that I’m ‘very cute’ and then people start to play with my ears, why do people do that? Not that I'm complaining, I love all the attention I get.
I’m very tired after my day out, I'm looking forward to getting into my crate so I can fall asleep on my soft bedding, I don’t think I will be playing with my special toys tonight though, I'm just too tired. It’s good to know that they are there though so if I wake up during the night I can play with them.
October 23rd 2006
I’ve learned so many new words these last few days, I cant remember all of them or what they are supposed to mean but I have learned that NO is not a ‘happy’ word, people sound angry when they use this word….if it makes them angry then why don’t they just use a happy word like… erm ….Barnaby or something…..I like that word!!!! Don’t understand these humans sometimes!!! I must have heard this word about 20 times today, okay….so I cant bite Krissie's ears anymore because she gets a little grouchy when I do, but I'm a puppy…doesn’t anyone understand that puppies like to grab hold of things. I grabbed hold of a human's leg earlier today, she was not very happy, I think she was more angry than Krissie was, she said NO very loud and seemed very angry at me, she had a scary look in her eyes so I thought that if I showed how nicely I can sit that she would be happy like everyone else is….she wasn’t, nope….not happy at all, after she shouted NO she just turned away from me and talked to someone else, she actually ignored me, how can anyone ignore a puppy, she kept rubbing her leg where I grabbed her…what can I say…I couldn’t resist but then what puppy could, I have to tell you humans that when you dangle something in front of a puppy we just cant help ourselves, we have this urge to grab it…and I did, well about 3 or 4 fingers anyway. She was not happy and I heard that word again only this time she shouted “NO BITE” well the next thing I knew she was spraying something on her hand and then she actually put her hand in my mouth, I was a little shocked at this behaviour but then I tasted something really yucky. So from what I’ve heard on the ‘doggy grapevine’ this horrible tasting ‘stuff’ is called Bitter Apple….just want to warn all you other puppies out there, you seriously do not want to taste this, its NASTY. The humans can spray this anywhere, they spray on their hands, their shoelaces, their jeans, their furniture….its everywhere, haven’t tasted it on any of my toys though…that’s a relief….it's okay guys, the toys are safe!
I have to tell you humans though, just so there is no misunderstanding, us puppies like to grab your hands for a few reason, when you play with us in a way that you are using your hands to push us away…that just makes us want to play with your hands, we don’t have fingers like you do to grab things with so we have to use our mouth, we don’t mean to hurt you but it appears that sometimes we do….so be warned, if you play with us like this then as far as we know this game is fun, we will most likely continue to play this game when we are all grown up and have bigger mouths and big strong teeth, the older dogs have told me that this makes you even more angry than the lady who shouted at me earlier was. The other reason we like to grab your hands is we just never know if there’s some tasty food in it. You give us treats from your hands and then expect us not to look for more?? You are a complicated species!!
October 24th 2006
Today I went to a puppy class, I went up to a Chihuahua puppy to say hello, he was sitting on his owners lap, I thought he looked friendly but when I got near him he barked at me a lot, not as friendly as I thought, don’t really understand why, I only wanted to play with him, so then I walked across the room and there was a BIG Malamute, he was fun to play with and we had a great time. The people at Royvon say that all puppies should be socialised because it’s good for us….I don’t think the Chihuahua agrees with that!! I have heard the trainers talking about some of the dogs they have on their lead, some of the dogs act very aggressive when they see another dog, the trainers say that sometimes it is because they weren’t socialised when they were just a little puppy like me. How sad….they had no puppy friends to play with.
October 27th 2006
Another few interesting days and I'm hearing that word NO quite a lot lately, I'm not biting peoples hands much any more….there are some people that I think have not learned that they shouldn’t tease me with their hands so sometimes I will bite them, only playing but then what’s a puppy to do, I'm told “NO BITE” by some people and then other people laugh when I'm hanging onto their fingers, this is all very confusing. The other words that are leaving me confused is when the say “NO….OFF”, now I have learned that ‘off’ means lots of things, sometimes I jump up on people and they say ‘off’ (very sternly, like that NO word), sometimes they say it when I jump onto the couch or onto the table (I'm a big puppy and I can reach the table now), I have figured out that whenever they say it they sound angry so I think that ‘off’ is a word I should pay attention to, whenever I do something now and they say ‘off’ if I put all of my paws on the ground they seem to like that and then they say “good off” in a happy voice and then I get lots of cuddles, Id rather just get the cuddles without the scary voice though, I'm practicing not jumping up…….its very hard though cos I get so excited when I see people.
October 31st 2006
I went out today on the lead, usually when I have the lead on it means we are going outside the Royvon facility to the nature trail, but today I was ‘forced’ to walk on the path near the cars….do you people know how scary this can be for a puppy, I don’t care that you think it's good for me, that’s just your opinion and I’ll have you know that being inside a car IS NOT the same as being on the outside and having to walk past them. They go so fast….a puppy could get seriously hurt by one of these things!! I even saw a big dog try and chase one of these cars away he was so angry at it….okay, well he did look happy that he was chasing it, I think it must be a ‘big dogs game’ they chase the cars and the cars see how fast they can get away, I’ve heard the humans talking though about some dogs that get too close to the big car wheels and the car doesn’t even stop, they just run the poor dogs over, that’s not very nice, they only wanted to play. L
I don’t think that I'll ever play that game. I'm too scared anyway.
November 2nd 2006
Okay well I hate to admit this but the humans were right, I'm not so scared of the noisy cars anymore, I’ve had two days of walking past them, I don’t like the noisy motorbikes or the great big trucks but the cars don’t really bother me much now….still don’t want to play chase with them though. I have found that there are so many other things outside the Royvon School that are much more interesting than the cars. And then there is always the lake again at the weekend, I get to play with all my new friends, I just have friends everywhere I go…..I’m a popular puppy J
Oh and I have to tell you this, I'm so proud of myself, today I did something really clever, at least that’s what I'm told, personally I don’t really understand what all the excitement was over but the humans seemed very happy about it so I'm just going to go along with it, as long as they're giving me lots of praise and cuddles then who am I to argue! Okay so I walked on a lead in the indoor training room, I don’t like that too much, do you have any idea how many things you can't do when your on one of those leads, you can't chase the ball, you can't chase the squirrels, your definitely not allowed to forget that you can't jump up to greet people….its shocking, but anyway, I was already good at sitting down when I was asked to, it’s a bit different when your asked to do this with a lead attached, I mean I feel a bit ‘restricted’, it annoys me slightly that I can't do what I want to do so I don’t always want to sit and look cute, not when I'm grumpy. But I went along with everything I was asked to do and then I heard this new word “STAY”……you’ve gotta be kidding right? You expect me, a puppy, I'm not even 4 months old yet and you expect me to be able to stay in one place when I'm not asleep, I think your expecting a bit too much BUT I figured Id give it a go….anything to please the humans (they are so easily entertained though!!) So, I sit when I'm asked and then I hear that new word “STAY” and the hand comes up in front of my face….. erm !! a little close to the nose there Jackie, any closer and I might just be tempted to grab your fingers….it would probably be worth the telling off….mind you, not if the hand still has that Bitter Apple on it….yucky!
Okay so I did it, I humoured her and I didn’t move, well, not exactly, I moved a few times because I actually didn’t have a clue what “stay” meant, this human is very stubborn, if I move she makes me go back to the same spot, sit down again and then the hand in front of my face and she says “stay” again….so I gave up, I stayed where I was, it was only a few seconds but in dog years that’s like half a day!! Anyways she seemed really happy that I didn’t move, got all the cuddles, kisses and loads of attention again, hey…works for me….like I said they are easily entertained. Well then she said that I was a very smart puppy to have done that at my age, of course then she had to show me off to Stewart, one of the other trainers at Royvon . I was asked to sit and then the hand again, “stay” and she walked away and just left me there….this was a bit of a shock, when we did this a few minutes ago she didn’t leave me there, she stood just a few feet away…I wasn’t too happy about this so I had to catch up to her but then we got this repetitive thing going on again…..okay, I'm a little tired of this now can we play another game?? But no, back to the spot I started off at, asked me to sit and stay, she kept saying stay as she was walking away….and then I couldn’t see her, she just disappeared, I was a bit worried that she might have forgotten about me but then half a day later (okay well in your human years it was only a few seconds) she appeared at the other side of the behaviour room, both of them, Jackie and Stewart gave me so many cuddles and kept saying “good boy Barnaby”….I think for the first time ever there was just a little too much of the cuddling thing, I was happy to get back into my crate so I could have space from them.
Just a tip for the humans, when you want to teach a puppy how to walk with one of those lead things attached please do it carefully and slowly. Some of the bigger dogs have told me that the first time they had a lead on they got dragged all over the place, they were scared because they didn’t know what it was or why it was there. The best way to get a puppy used to this is to first just put a light collar on, give us a few days to get used to that being there, then use a very lightweight lead, attach the lead to the collar, let us drag the lead around for a while, maybe a couple of times a day. Please don’t leave this thing on if your not there to watch us with it, some of the dogs have said that they have got caught up somewhere and almost strangled themselves with it. Once we get used to dragging it around you can pick it up, don’t pull us on it, you will frighten us, I mean how would you like it if someone did this to you, attached a lead to your neck and dragged you around, I don’t think you would like it very much. Let us lead you around, not for long, just until we get used to you being on the other end of it, then if your nice to us, like you encourage us to walk with you….well you know how much we love attention, of course we will follow you, give us lots of praise when we are walking right next to you.
November 5th 2006
The humans had this horrible noisy night tonight. Big flashes of light in the sky and so many big loud bangs, I didn’t like it at all. I'm okay though, I'm in my crate where I feel safe and there is music playing on the radio so even though I can hear the noise it hasn’t seemed as scary since the radio has been on. Some of the bigger dogs are very scared but the people at Royvon put some radios in the kennels so they can’t hear so many loud bangs now. I hope they are all okay.
November 8th 2006
Well I've recovered from the ‘traumatic experience of Bonfire Night, wasn’t too bad and I got to sleep easy enough, have to admit I was a bit nervous on Monday when we went out for a walk, I kept thinking that the banging noises were going to start again but they didn’t. We went for our ‘regular’ little walk along the road; we do this now about 3 or 4 times a day, usually not for long but each day we go a little bit further and a little bit further. I'm practising the new ‘game’ of stay; I am always on my lead when I'm near the road. We don’t just walk down the road now, I have to sit and stay sometimes, good thing I learned what ‘stay’ means because Jackie now has this thing about making me walk across the roads, does she have any idea how dangerous this can be!! Just as well there aren’t any cars coming when she decides that she wants to cross.
Oh yeah! I saw a cat today, I tried to run over to play with him but I forgot about the lead being attached to me, felt it tug on my neck a little and then heard a very loud “NO” I wasn’t very happy with this, are puppies not allowed to play with the other animals they meet in the street? Apparently not, I guess it's not the same as being in the park or at the lake and now that I think about it I would have had to get across that road to play with the cat….and there was a big truck pretty close, oh well, I guess this lead does have some good points, see puppies, or even the big dogs don’t always think about the bad things that can happen to them when they see something fun to play with.
November 12th 2006
Today I went to Pets At Home, there were other dogs in there, and sooooo much food, toys all over the place and at the far end there were all these little animals, birds, little fish swimming around. I got a bit excited with the funny animals with the long ears and the other little furry animals, they started squealing really loud when I went to say hello at which point I was taken away from them, that’s okay though, I got to spend some time looking at all the toys which brings me to a question, if a puppy isn’t supposed to play with all these toys then why would they be within easy reach, its not like I even had to jump up to get them but every time I picked one up it was taken away from me and put back on the shelf, makes no sense to have all these toys if we are not allowed to play with them. What are they for? You need money? What's money? Oh well, it was fun grabbing them all even if I couldn’t take one home with me.
Barnaby's owner was finally ready to have him back home just after this last entry. Jackie thought she would be relieved and ready to focus on all the other tasks of which she had been falling behind having to care and train a puppy 24/7, but it wasn't necessarily the case. She was very sad to see him go and continues to miss him and think about him every day. This is not to say that she's ready for another full-time puppy training experience any time soon, but............you never know.......... watch this space!
