Good dog!

He's 9 weeks old, it's early days but at present I can't believe how good Oscar is!

We took him to puppy pre-school, a "family consultation", at the training school we have enrolled him in. It was just a chat about what to expect from classes, any problems we were having and things like that. The training centre is a 40 minute drive away. He slept on the back seat all the way there. The consultation ended up lasting an hour and a half. It was in a room that was completely new to Oscar, with lots of interesting doggy smells and a new lady who had paid him a lot of attention on arrival. And all he did for an hour and a half was sit calmly on my knee, mostly sleeping, occasionally wiggling and grumbling but mostly just perfectly chilled out and relaxed. Then he slept on the back seat of the car for 40 minutes on the way home and went to the loo as soon as I put him on the ground in the garden.

The consultation was really good, they train and run classes exactly how I expect a good positive training class to run. And a lot of it reasured us that what we are doing with him is the right stuff. I'm looking forward to starting classes, partly because I will be in a room full of puppies for an hour or so!!

On Friday he met Ridley, a 2.5 year old Viszla bitch who we have offered to look after whenever her owner needs it. I think Ridley was more worried by Oscar than he was by Ridley! It was a much calmer meeting than the one with Stiggy had been and I think Oscar got a lot of confidence from it. The extra good thing is that Oscar was much more bothered about saying hello to Ridley's mum than he was to Ridley. A person centred dog is always a good thing. Ridley is coming to stay tonight for a few days! It's going to be a mad week. Full of bounce all round.

Saturday involved a trip into Keswick to buy stuff from the pet shop and do a bit of Meeting The Public. Oscar is rediculously good at this, and by association I have to get good at it! He lounges around in my arms being cute and people come up and coo at him and say how gorgeous he is and ask how old he is and say how gorgeous he is more. And I talk to them about their dogs, because they always want to tell you about their dogs and then they coo some more then get on there way. Then I take 5 more steps before someone else wants to coo over the puppy. It's really, really good. Oscar is a complete star and pokes his nose at people, licks faces that are offered and wags his little stumpy tail but otherwise doesn't wiggle at all and generally lolls in my arms like Lord Muck. He's met so many different kinds of people now. I just can't wait until he's had his second jabs and can go on the ground. 6kg of puppy is hard work to carry about! There were quite a few dogs in Keswick as well and he sniffed a few vaccinated ones. Hopefully by ensuring that he does get access to his own species for a sniff as a matter of course he won't start getting really hyped up whenever he sees another dog.

One lady in Keswick was so excited to see a little spaniel puppy she actually dropped her handbag and asked if she could have a hold of him! Her whole face lit up and I think letting her have a cuddle of him completely made her day. She was quite an old lady and said something about not being able to have dogs anymore. I was really glad we could make her so happy with just 2 minutes of Oscar cuddles. It made me and S think of investigating the possibility of having Oscar be a Pets As Therapy dog when he's older. If he retains his calm but cuddly nature it'll definitely be something we look into. When I'm old or ill and stuck somewhere where I can't have pets I would really appreciate being visited by a dog every so often so I'd like to do the same for someone else if we can and if Oscar would enjoy it.

Yesterday there was a trip to the local garden centre, more fuss and cooing. He sat on my knee while we had tea and sausage sandwiches and didn't move at all. I'm pretty sure he's not normal - what kind of dog lets you eat a sausage sandwich over his head without even batting an eyelid? S held him while I had chocolate cake though, just in case. If he ate a sausage it's not the end of the world, if he ate chocolate I'd worry so much in case he had a reaction to it. There was another dog at the cafe and he just looked at it. Good dog.

Training is coming on. The house training has come on immmensly the last few days. Just a couple of accidents when I haven't been vigilant enough. He now sits and waits for his tea until he is told to come and get it. And he'll wait for a good 30 seconds, if not more. He'd learned to shake a paw and is starting on roll over. He has just managed to get himself onto the sofa today! So he now knows "get on the sofa" and "get off the sofa" and knows that get on the sofa gets a brief pat and get off the sofa gets LOADS of praise and about 5 treats and a very excited tummy rub. He is going to be allowed on the sofa (even though I thought I would be against it, I've changed my mind!) but he's going to be under control when he does. What I can't do and he refuses to do if walk on the lead! I think he thinks that it's beneath his dignity and he just can't figure out why I'm doing it. I'm sure once he can go out for walks he'll be more into the idea and I don't want to try and do too much with it, I think I shall see if training class can get us past this particular impass!

He is just such a good dog overall that I'll forgive him for this one failing. I'm not sure there has ever been such a chilled out Sprocker puppy in all the world. So long as he has plenty of energy to throw into the things we want him to do (I think he will!) then long may it continue.



xxx

Vaccines and Worms.

I can't believe that it's Thursday already! It's been reasonably uneventful week for Oscar so far, I think he's settled in a lot more and got into our routine and we've become more used to having him around. And I've been bad and not taken him out socialising as much as I should have (S was ill on Tuesday and I was ill yesterday though, to have some kind of excuse).

Monday was a trip to the vets for 8 week vaccinations. We sat in a waiting room with some other dogs and cats and lots of people talking and waiting at reception and he remained completely not bothered. We went into the consulting room and he stood on the table and was totally chilled out again. The vet was very impressed with the size of him (this is the third vet he's seen!) but less impressed with his docked tail, commenting that it was "quite short". I just said "well, someone from here did it", that shut her up. It's not *that* short, not hock-length as I think is prefered these days but not a stumpy stub by a long chalk, it's about half-way to his hock and is fine. But other than that one comment the vet was really lovely, very concerned as to whether we were getting him out and about and used to everything.

Did I say that he had worms in his poo last week? Canine roundworms. Not nice. Well he did. I mentioned it to the vet and she decided he could do with another wormer in that case, a chewy tablet for me to give him at home the next day. All good.

He weighed him and generally gave him a check over and fuss and then the jab in the back of his neck which he didn't even notice. Good, brave dog. The ladies on reception made a fuss of him while I tried to juggle puppy, paperwork and purse so I could pay! Then is was back home. He slept a lot that afternoon and evening, a combination of the jabs and the business of the morning I think.

The next day I gave him his wormer. Later on, there was a poo and a worm. A worm which wiggled as it came out. It totally freaked me out, I'm usually ok with stuff like this but after seeing that (and having to send S out to pick the poo up!) I couldn't eat my toast. Then S took him out again because he seemed restless and Oscar pooed a worm out on its own. *vomit* Apparently it was wiggling as it came out! Poor Oscar that must have felt odd!

We kind of thought that was it, and that was bad enough, but then yesterday he decided to have a poo in the house (this is quite unusual and we can usually catch him and get him to got outside but we missed it this time) and it was FULL of worms! *vomit* and then while S was getting a poo bag he went AGAIN! Just a worm, then more poo with worms. *spews bile* Poor dog! Poor us! And no more since then, so hopefully that's it. But we'll be getting another wormer when he goes for his second vaccination. Sorry that was all a bit detailed on the poo and worm front wasn't it? But I guess it's all part of having a puppy.

The mites (this puppy is just a compendium of delights) had cleared up quite nicely after Frontlining but today there is a new crop of them. They will be smited but we have to wait until Monday to use the Frontline again. Until then it's natural remedy time, oh yes.

What else has Oscar been up to? I've started some clicker training and he will now "sit" and "down" on command. It's strange the clicker training because you do things backwards, you get the behaviour first THEN put the command to it. When I trained Molli the Collie I taught the command and behaviour almost at the same time, and it involved a lot more luring into position. With the clicker training I only had to show Oscar that lying down got rewarded twice before he started doing it himself. Then once he was doing it himself a lot I put the command in as he was doing it, then you just have to move the command to slightly before he does it and eventually he will do it on command. And I think you get a more reliable result over all. I have also been using the clicker to try and get him walking on the lead nicely. It's getting better but I think it'll be a slow process, he's not in favour of leads and not being in charge of where to go. ;-)

I've also been working hard on his manners, sitting and waiting before anything nice happens (doggy's teas, getting toys out, being greated and going through a doorway mostly). Just gently establishing control and leadership, no need to be loud or rough just avoid being a push over.

The playbiting seems to be calming down a little as well, after all hard bites resulting in whoever he was playing with leaving the room the hard biting has stopped. We are now working on stopping all bites with any pressure before putting any mouthing at all under some sort of control. I was reading around and apparently if you do it this way, phasing out the biting rather than stopping it altogether all at once, they learn much better bite inhibition, as in they know how hard they are biting and will be able to control the pressure of their bite under any stress. If you just stop it altogether then you can get a dog that just bites HARD as soon as it feels threatened, whereas a dog with bite inhibition will know how to just mouth without biting hard. Or something like that. Seems to be working for Oscar so far anyway.

I would like to say the same for the inappropriate chewing of household objects but I can't just yet and am not sure how to manage it. We are taking him to puppy pre-school tonight - a "family consultation" at the training school we will be going to (the only APDT approved training school in West Cumbria!) so I'm going to get some in person advice about the chewing then. For the time being just keeping everything out of his way seems the best bet.

Right, I'm going to sneak some mite cream onto his leg while he's asleep...

xxx

The Stig.

Oscar met his first dog today. A big terrier called Stiggy who lives at the B&B across the green. After a morning where things didn't seem to be going our way (the doggy date that had been arranged for today got cancelled and we couldn't get in touch with any other potentials) S popped over their to see if they had any bacon and sausage we could cook a consolation brunch with (they have their own pigs on a small-holding).

He came back with bacon, sausage, black pudding and a promise to bring Stiggy over in an hour.

I was quite worried really, you don't quite know how the pup is going to react and we don't know the older dog either in this case. Not ideal but trying to get Oscar socialised is worth basically having him meet any dog who's owner thinks they are going to be ok. If the dog is a bit "funny" then Oscar just gets used to a wider range of canine reactions. Eeeek.

Right on time Stiggy and his boss came trotting across the green. As soon as Stiggy came in the gate Oscar went right up to him, close to the floor wagging, wiggling and widdling a little bit. That's good, good submissive moves puppy. Stig seemed totally unimpressed and proceeded to ignore Oscar completey and concentrate on sniffing the garden before scent marking everything.

"Everything" including Oscar! Poor pup had decided that running between Stig's legs was a good plan (he's a tall terrier - wirey orange fluff on stilts) and he managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't seem to notice and it didn't stop him keep getting in Stig's way.

Stig gave Oscar the occasional "back off" growl and Oscar responded well, making himself smaller and further away for at least a second or two. This carried on for a while, Stig doing a really thorough job on the scent marking and Oscar trying to persuade him to stop and play. Oscar was really good and came away when called though and didn't just focus completely on Stig and was very happy to come and say hello to Stig's human as well.

Then Stig decided he wanted to play and there was rolling around on the floor and some face-batting. Then Stig barked and Oscar did not like that at all! He couldn't understand why this big dog was making that squeeky noise (poor old Stig didn't have a very manly bark) and his tail went between his legs and he legged it a bit. Stig thought it was a game and chosed Oscar, but came away for a fuss with S and Oscar calmed down and came and sat by us and looked at Stig doing his best Ewok impression rolling around on his back.

There was a bit more chasing around during which Stig humped Oscar!! Oh my God, Oscar's face. Dog behaviour in action! Stig's owner said "who's the daddy, Stig?". LOL! Poor Oscar. It's alright in a few months Oscar'll be twice the size of Stiggy and can get him back good and proper.

To be honest it sounds worse than it was. By the time Stig left Oscar's tail was wagging again and I think he will have learned a good bit about doggy body language - which is the point of the exercise. I'm going to make sure I have food with me for his next dog so that I can reinforce positive associations with other dogs as he was a touch stressed when Stig barked and it would have been better to give Oscar a treat when Stig barked so that he made a good connection with it in his head.

Live and learn. There will be more doggy dates for Oscar this week.

We gave him a bath after that (just to add to the trauma of the day), mostly to get the Stig wee off but also to help wash off the scabby bits that they mites have left after we killed them off with Frontline. Tea tree shampoo to sooth his skin a bit as well. It seems to have worked - he's been a lot less itchy and I flea-combed alot of scabbage that had got loose out today as well. Yuck. But the mites have mostly gone which is the main thing. He may well pick up more but we can use Frontline every two weeks and the mite season only lasts a couple of months. We'll see how it goes.

Big day for a little Oscar all round really. Tomorrow is another big day... back to the vets for his first jabs!

xxx

Mite-y Oscar.

I keep wanting to write a blog but I'm really unsure what to say as the past few days with Oscar have been such an emotional roller-coaster that I haven't been able to decide if it's going to be an up blog or a down blog.

My problem is that I'm so, what word can I make up here?, completistic about things. If he wees outside then in my head he's completely toilet trained, amazing! High. But then he wees inside and he's completely broken, he just hasn't got it and it must be completely my fault. Low, very low. In reality he's just a puppy and he'll get there.

Also I have been on my own with him during the day now that S has gone back to work. It's been hard, not hard work just mentally hard doing all the minute by minute decisions for another creatures comfort all by myself. And even more time spent outside waiting for him to go to the toilet.

I still completely love him, obviously. And he is such a good dog. He's learning retrieve and improving and has started to do walking on a lead, which isn't going so well and is making me think that clicker training could well be the way forward. But he's trying!

Unfortunately he seems to have picked up a mite infestation! :-( Harvest mites are large orange mights that digest an animal's skin for 2-3 days at this particular stage in their life cycle. They are common this time of year in this area apparently. And Oscar's got a freight-load all over him. Round his back legs and in his armpits, all over his ears and between his toes! Poor little chap, they must be itching like crazy. I had a look at them with my hand-lens and saw one or two crawling about - proper yuck!

We took him to the vets today and I have to say that I wasn't very impressed with the particular vet we saw today. She was short and seemed uncertain and not that bothered somehow. She gave us some stuff to kill them, and said that it "might work". And didn't give us any other information or advice whatsoever. Thanks love. I've found out more from the internet than I have from her! They drop off in a few days anyway but the Frontline chemical stuff she prescribed will help protect him from them as well. We are going to use it and leave it for a couple of days then bath him in tea-tree shampoo - throw some natural remedy at the little shites as well.

I'm really angry that these tiny orange pests think they can just waltz up and prey on my gorgeous little Oscar. Ha! I will smite them to kingdom come. And then nuke the garden so that no more that can get him.

Or something.

I'm quite, quite tired.

xxx