In addition to the regular and “natural” training we’ve been doing, I’ve been following the advice given out at our weekly obedience class to step up the rate at which I give out treats. When we’re at the park, I now hand out a treat for just about any positive behavior – whether it’s returning to my side unbidden after a brief sniffing sortie, or simply looking up at me regularly as we’re walking along. I’ve been doing this now for just about a week, and during that time I’ve seen an improvement in Beanie’s behavior. She’s generally staying closer to me during our walks, and when we meet another dog she’s much happier to carry on walking with me after a quick doggy greeting. The drawback with this of course is that we’d rather not have a large proportion of her diet coming from treats. As a compromise, Susan tried spicing up Beanie’s regular kibble (Burn’s Minibites) as follows:

• Boil up a small amount of cheap mince in water. Once it’s cool, ditch any fat that’s left floating on the surface.
• Liquidize the remaining meat and soak pour it over the kibble
• Cook the kibble to dry it out again

If this is done just before the walk, Beanie’s quite happy to accept this a very healthy and balanced alternative to off-the-shelf treats. However if it’s not fresh, forget it!

One day last week though even the tastiest Baker’s puppy junk food lost its appeal. While walking in a wooded part of the park, we came across a dead bird. I just about had time to think “uh-oh, there’s gonna be trouble” before Beanie grabbed it and scampered off out of my reach. Her head and tail were both held really high – a behavior normally reserved for smelly trophies grabbed from our laundry basket. I only managed to get hold of her when she started rolling about on it to acquire it’s lovely parfum de corpse. Yuck. Needless to say she went back on lead until we’d got a fair distance away.