"HEEL!" With a harness

I do not own this photo.

Elsie and I have been having training sessions with heel. For the first part, I bought her a pink medium sized harness. I tried on one in the PetSmart to make sure it worked and all. The harness has helped a lot with training Elsie to heel.

What I needed was some diligence, a harness, and a semi long walk.

First off, the halter had some major benefits. Unlike the collar, which makes Elsie choke if she pulls to much and if I pulled her back, the harness enables me to make her come back to me. Along with that, the harness is cute and all :). She doesn't seem bothered by the harness at all. She slipped out of it on Wednesday night, trying to get to me while Mom held her leash... but it hasn't had many problems.

Heel!:

Mom and I went for a walk on Thursday night. I had Elsie in her new harness and I had seen some ways to make her heel. One of these was to stop as soon as the loose lead tightens. I would sometimes pull her back, and the harness was handy for this. (I also used the clicker part of the time). I WAS SOOOOO PLEASED! By the end of the night, Elsie was doing so WELL!!!! What a pleasure!

On Friday night, we walked again... Elsie will actually turn around and come back to my side now!!!!! It is so much more pleasant to walk with her not pulling.

How to:

Almost every time Elsie would get ahead of me, I would stop, pull her back to my side (or you can wait till the dog comes back to your side, if it will.) Never move up to the dog. On Friday night, for the most part, I could tap at my side and say "Heel" to make her come back. I would sometimes I would give her a "click" and a hotdog. I also would reward her every now and then as she stayed on my left side. I am teaching her to do the traditional, I suppose, heel, on the left side.

~Western Belle

Tricks, moving, overall obedience

Elsie is about 17 weeks old now. We have had her over 10 weeks! She is getting very big....... With moving and my sister, "Lisa's" wedding, she has been having different experiences.

Moving and Wedding Experiences

For the wedding Elsie was kept in the kennel for a quiet a long time. Seeing as I was gone the entire six hours she was locked in the kennel on the wedding day, I am not sure how much she barked, but when we got home to let her out, she was STILL barking. Oh well..... she had been locked in for a long time and might have just started barking. We need to work on that with her. Elsie still barks a lot when she is kenneled during the day. On Friday (The Eve of the wedding), she was locked in the house (in my room) for a few hours..... My dad says when he left you could hear her a whiles away.

We picked up a kennel for her on Saturday..... The wonders of going to a garage sale a half hour to an hour before you are supposed to be at the wedding photos. The kennel was pretty cheap for it kind and it is small enough to carry around and big enough to fit Elsie for the now. It is a PetMate kennel and I have not tested it yet.

With all the moving and wedding stuff Elsie has had some experience with new people. On Monday, my brother's good friend hung out with us and on Tuesday, Elsie was around a family of 8. She also got to meet my good friend and adopted sister, Missy, the wedding photographer, my sister's husband, and met up with other people she had seen before.

Car Rides

Elsie has adjusted very well to traveling with us -- even in hugely crowded vehicles. We left her in the car for around 5 to 10 minutes alone while we went to the feed store and she did very well! She and Skia are the dogs we bring most along with us.

Tricks

As far as tricks go, Elsie has not learned a lot more. I have worked a little on getting her to stand on the step stool, crawl, and stand. She does pretty well with shake, sit, and down.

Obedience

Barking. That is one of the main things we need to work on... that and biting smaller children. Elsie is very verbal and barks when strangers come around, when she is excited, and when she is upset. With strangers, the best solution is to spray her very quickly with a squirt bottle. With biting she needs to be punished and not bothered.

Bath Time!

I gave Elsie her first bath last or the second to last Saturday ago. She did alright -- escaped once and ran upstairs. She ended up very clean but has gotten less clean since then. She had not allergies to the shampoo.

~Western Belle

Dealing with Biting, Tricks, and Updates

Well, it has been a while since I updated anyone about our fuzzy little puppy. She is quickly getting to a more adult-ish look and has her own adolescent problems. She has gained some very good habits and retained some awful ones (tricks and come/biting).

Tricks and Come

Elsie learned to ring the bell to ask to go out!!!!! YEAH!! Now, I think she might just ring it to go out, even if she does not need out! Sometimes she just hits it with her paw and sometimes she hits it with her nose.

She has mastered the dog door -- comes in more then out --.

Elsie also comes much better by now! Which is soooo nice!!!!!!!

Biting

Biting! Yes, I am afraid Elsie has gotten a very bad habit of biting. This is not always playful biting. She believes she is top dog. Over ALL! Well, not quite. The biting does not really affect me. I mean, she just seems to respond better to us girls... probably because we don't care to be a chew toy like my brothers.

One friend, who actually owns a Border Collie and used to be a Vet Tech, advised us to flip Elsie over on her back when she grows aggressive. There are many opinions about this this theory --negative and positive-- we found it very affective. Or at least us girls (mom and I) found it working, the boys.... well.... Elsie still gets nasty sometimes.

So I began a bit of research after my oldest brother came in. He reported that he had tried to take a bone away from Elsie. And Elsie had struck back........

Many are the theories! If you just look at one website, you can find over five or six remedies for this weird behavior. The include cans with rocks in them, squirt bottles, pinching the mouth open and the tongue down, ect. How to Stop Biting! Take a look at this link to get some pretty good information!

Anyways, pinching the mouth open works wonderful!

Surgery!

Elsie has about completely cured from her rear dew claw surgery! She got her bandages off sometime last week!

~Western Belle

Sunday Update

This past week has been full enough and we have a few updates for Elsie, including surgery and tricks.

Vet Visit (Surgery)

Elsie visited the vet again this week. Instead of shots this time though, she had to have her rear dew claws removed. Dew claws might cause issues in agility and activities like search and rescue and hunting. So, to be safe, we had them removed. The front dew claws normal are not an issue, but Elsie was born with rare-ish rear dew claws.

Happily, the surgery went well. Elsie came out of it and is just as playful as ever!

Tricks and Basic Commands (Little Improvements)

I can happily say now, Elsie has mastered sit and down to almost perfection (not so much on the down, and she already knew sit.) Along with common commands, Elsie is learning to shake hands. She has almost got this all good and will lift her paw (sometimes accompanied with a bite..... OW!) Coming is getting much better. Sometimes a chicken or something else distracts Elsie, but she is doing very well with it.

Crating

YAY!!!! Elsie rarely whines now. She is still crated at night and on Sunday morning (and evenings sometimes). Her whining has gotten very minimal and only comes occasionally in circumstances like time to get up or go out.

Feeding

We have upped her to about 1 1/2 quarter cups of food a day and at 7, 1, and 6 or 7, feeding times. She has such an appetite since not eating for almost 1 1/2 days due to surgery.

~Western Belle

Teaching to Walk/Re-Crate Training

Awww... After a perfect night on Thursday night, I cant say Friday night was great. Elsie barked. And she practically barked about 3 and 1/2 hours this morning. So we are back to step one.

CRATE TIME IS FUN TIME. Not a punishment.

Mom and I both looked up stuff on crate training. We finally decided to introduce her to the kennel as a fun place she goes for safety, protection, peace etc. We take a treat or kibble, toss it into the kennel, and coax Elsie into the kennel. Every few tries, we close the kennel door, and feed Elsie kibble through the kennel door. But only for about five seconds. Then the door pops open and out comes Elsie. Here are the steps we take to this "nice time is crate time".

1. Have LOTS of kibble and treats. DO NOT give big treats just little bits to coax and please your puppy.
2. Toss the kibble into and clean and nice kennel. Coax your puppy to get towards the crate. DO NOT put her in. She needs to get in on her own free will.
3. As soon as she takes steps in and gets in praise her. Call her a good girl and dont say a bland "Good Girl....". Say an enthusiastic "GOOOD GIRL!!!!!"
4. Ignore her when she gets out. Dont punish her. Just do not praise her for exiting the kennel.
5. After a few tries, close the kennel door for 2-5 seconds or longer. Praise her, give her a treat, and let her out.

Another thing we have been working on is walking her. Elsie has lots of energy when she should be sleeping and when she wakes up... so we need to get as much energy out in the day time as possible. Which means when she wakes up, play and play and play. And take her for long (for a puppy) walks. I use a piece of twine to walk Elsie. It is not a very heavy leash and works very well.

Today I walked her most of the way down a lane, part of the way up a circle, and back up most of the lane. Plus we walked up part of my Grandmother's property. She gets very muddy and dirty. Remember to put that on your check list if you buy a white dog.

Well, now she is awake. Play time!

~Western Belle

Training to Sit

For Elsie, sitting come naturally. She just loves to do it. She loves to receive treats (kibble or treats) as a reward. As you hold a piece of kibble over her head and tell her "Sit!", she almost always answers in her obedient and greedy way of collapsing on her haunches. To teach Elsie we simple used this series of steps.

1. First have some kibble or a treat.
2. Next, call you puppy towards you, and as soon as she is there, hold the treat over her nose, slightly out of reach. If you hold it too high she jumps. Pull the treat back and over her head till she sits.
3. There you GO!!!!

Or this one works alright to:

1. Call puppy.
2. Place your hand on her bottom and make her sit.
3. Reward her.

I personally like the first way better.

~Western Belle