Kayla
10-26-2006, 01:59 PM
Introducing Duke: our newest family member. He's a Rotti x Shepherd x Smooth Coat Collie and is an amazing little guy. Along with the full arrange of puppy goofiness he is extremely intelligent and in the two weeks we have had him he has mastered, sit, come, stay and go potty. He starts his puppy obedience classes in two weeks time once he turns 12 weeks. He is very nippy but I know its just a teething thing, to correct it I simply grab his snout gently but firmly and tell him no bite while staring him in the eyes and if he continues I just get up and leave for 2 mins and come back and praise and reward him for being nice and gentle. The only real issues I've been having is getting the rest of my family to stay consistent with the training and commands particularly my mom who thinks it cute when he runs over and mauls her slippers or whines when he goes in his crate, I've explained over and over it wont be when he's 80-100 pounds and is nipping or bitting people or our feet and when he starts screaming and barking non stop once he goes in his crate ( he was so good last week with it and would fall asleep in two seconds and now anytime he whines everyone goes over to comfort him argh).
He's also been out to many public places with me including a reptile show since we had a table to sell some of our hatchlings and was very well behaved and intrested in everything going around despite the hundreds of people walking by our table and the odd new smells of all of the snakes and other animals their.
He's also starting to accept our cats and is learning that he gets rewarded for being nice to them and that the big mean cats hiss at him when he comes to close. He's great with other dogs and is just a little over domineering at first which most of my friends dogs depending on their age while either put him in his place or play back if their still puppies. I've started also teaching him that our parrot is not a chew toy and that it has a very painful bite ( Duke went over to sniff him for the first time and Cyrus chomped down on his nose).
I'm so excited to finally have a dog of my own that will be moving out with me and one that I can have complete last say on the training ( only using positive reinforcement).
The one question I did have however is how long does it generally take to switch over a puppy from one dog food to another? Many books written by Authors that I deeply respect ( such as Dr. Stanley Qauren from, "Good dog") all said that it was unnecessary to wean them onto their new food as dogs in the wild are very capable of eating a wide variety of food and then compared it back to how we don’t get sick when we eat say turkey one night and beef the next. So I ended up followed that advice as it made sense to me however his stools have become very runny. He has been gaining weight and his coat feels 100 times better now that he’s on Wellness and off nutrience, so I don’t think its detrimental to his health but not sure if I should start over and slowly wean him over or wait for it to pass. What do you guys think?
Here are a few pic of him playing with our 11 year old boxer who unfortunatly do to her cancer ( we found out last friday on her birthday that she had it and that all of her lympth nods throughout her body were swelling including her throat glands making it horrible hard to breath) has to be put down tommorow:( and a few pics of him with his best doggie friend Gypsy ( my friends dog) that comes hiking with us.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c171/exotica_reptiles16/IMG_0310.jpg
Duke and Gypsy at my friends house
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/bkchacozy/GypsyUpdate/DSC06871.jpg
Duke with Diamond our boxie
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c171/exotica_reptiles16/IMG_0337.jpg
Thanks for looking
Kayla
He's also been out to many public places with me including a reptile show since we had a table to sell some of our hatchlings and was very well behaved and intrested in everything going around despite the hundreds of people walking by our table and the odd new smells of all of the snakes and other animals their.
He's also starting to accept our cats and is learning that he gets rewarded for being nice to them and that the big mean cats hiss at him when he comes to close. He's great with other dogs and is just a little over domineering at first which most of my friends dogs depending on their age while either put him in his place or play back if their still puppies. I've started also teaching him that our parrot is not a chew toy and that it has a very painful bite ( Duke went over to sniff him for the first time and Cyrus chomped down on his nose).
I'm so excited to finally have a dog of my own that will be moving out with me and one that I can have complete last say on the training ( only using positive reinforcement).
The one question I did have however is how long does it generally take to switch over a puppy from one dog food to another? Many books written by Authors that I deeply respect ( such as Dr. Stanley Qauren from, "Good dog") all said that it was unnecessary to wean them onto their new food as dogs in the wild are very capable of eating a wide variety of food and then compared it back to how we don’t get sick when we eat say turkey one night and beef the next. So I ended up followed that advice as it made sense to me however his stools have become very runny. He has been gaining weight and his coat feels 100 times better now that he’s on Wellness and off nutrience, so I don’t think its detrimental to his health but not sure if I should start over and slowly wean him over or wait for it to pass. What do you guys think?
Here are a few pic of him playing with our 11 year old boxer who unfortunatly do to her cancer ( we found out last friday on her birthday that she had it and that all of her lympth nods throughout her body were swelling including her throat glands making it horrible hard to breath) has to be put down tommorow:( and a few pics of him with his best doggie friend Gypsy ( my friends dog) that comes hiking with us.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c171/exotica_reptiles16/IMG_0310.jpg
Duke and Gypsy at my friends house
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/bkchacozy/GypsyUpdate/DSC06871.jpg
Duke with Diamond our boxie
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c171/exotica_reptiles16/IMG_0337.jpg
Thanks for looking
Kayla