New Experiences

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Susan

Meeting Santa wasn’t the only exciting new experience for Biggles this week! Earlier in the week he came along to Beanie’s agility practice session and had a little sniff around the equipment. Today he joined Beanie in the swimming pool.

Biggles won’t start proper swimming lessons until he’s growth spurt finishes at around 6 months old. But right now he is still young enough not to be afraid so we wanted to introduce him to water now. He seemed to instinctively know how to swim! Here’s a little video clip showing his first dip in the pool. Watch his little legs start to swim before they even touch the water :)

He had a second brief dip a few minutes later and swam beautifully!

Clara and Tara (Tess’s babies) had their first swim too at 6 months old. Being older and wiser than Biggles they were pretty apprehensive at first, but did just great once they found their sea legs.

You can see Clara & Tara, Tess and all the other participants of the recent Glasgow Dog Training Club Pool Party on the Glasgow Dog Training Club Blog.

Review: Comfy Collar

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Paul

We tend to buy a lot of stuff for our dogs. Some of it’s great, while some of it ends up in the bin after a couple of minutes, so I thought I’d post up some reviews every so often.

Given that Beanie’s currently recovering from an op to remove half of Glasgow from her stomach and has a sizeable scar that needs protecting, it makes sense to start with this:

The “Comfy Collar”. It’s an alternative to the traditional Elizabethan collar (aka lampshade) that’s typically given out by vets to prevent licking of wounds. The collar has an outer sleeve made of what appears to be vinyl, and an inflatable inner tube. The sleeve has a zip so that it can be removed for easy cleaning, and also a little hole on one side to provide access to the valve. The valve is recessed so it would be quite difficult even for a talented accomplice (such as an eleven week old pup called Biggles) to mess with it.

Fitting is straightforward: inflate it, thread the dog’s ordinary collar through the three loops on the inner edge (you can just see one of them in the picture), put the collar on the dog and finally use the velcro strap to adjust overall tightness. Here’s the finished item, modeled by my glamorous assistant Beanie:

OK, so is it actually any good? Well here’s the good and the bad as far as I can see:

It’s lightweight, and doesn’t obstruct the dog’s field of view at all.
It does indeed seem to be more comfortable than the standard lampshade – Beanie behaves pretty normally with it on and can eat, drink and sleep soundly.
It does a fine job of preventing access to the scar on Beanie’s abdomen, but it might not do such a great job if you need to protect the genital area or rear paws, and it absolutely doesn’t stop the dog scratching its head. For Beanie right now that’s all a plus, but for some injury sites I think the lampshade would do a superior job. Of course a lot would depend on the flexibility of your dog, neck and snout length etc.
Getting the right fit with the velcro strap is crucial. If the fit is too loose, the dog may be able to swivel the back of the collar round to the front, and gain access to its wound. If it’s too tight I’d be concerned about how much pressure it was exerting around the dog’s neck.
It might not be a good choice if you have other dogs in the house and can’t keep them segregated. The collar’s inner tube seems to be pretty tough, but I think the collar would make a great chew toy. In fact Biggles complained a lot the first time I put it on Beanie – why was she getting the new toy instead of him?

If you want to give the Comfy Collar a try, I’d recommend getting it from Pawsitive:

http://shop.pawsitive.co.uk/

Their price for the collar is about the best I found, they dispatched very quickly and their service is superb – which brings me to my final point about the collar: take great care in picking the right size. The size you choose determines not only the fit around the neck, but also how wide and fat the “tyre” is, and therefore plays a part in how effective it’s going to be. If your dog’s neck is anywhere near the upper band of a size, I’d recommend going for the next size up. Also, double check the label on the collar itself when it arrives! In our case the manufacturer slipped up when marking the sizes on the outer packaging – thankfully Pawsitive could not have been better in helping us finally get the right collar for Beanie.

First Day at School

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Susan

Biggles finally started puppy classes last night and I baked a sardine cake for the occasion.

We were last to arrive and all the other pups were getting to know each other as we walked in. He was the youngest and littlest there, but it didn’t phase him for a second. He ran around saying hi to everyone, tail waggling like mad. He was very popular with all of the children.

He’s every bit as confident as Beanie was when she was little, but a lot more noisy! He barked to let everyone know he’d arrived; He barked at everyone he met; He barked when anyone paid attention to him; He barked when no one was paying attention to him; He barked when anyone appeared to be having more fun than him! But basically all the barks meant one thing – I’M HERE – PLAY WITH ME!!!!!

After the introduction we had a handling session. The idea of this is to make sure that when your puppy grows up he doesn’t mind having his teeth brushed, his ears inspected or his nails clipped. And it also makes your vets life a lot easier if your dog is happy to be handled.

Biggles doesn’t mind being handled at all….

…all he cared about was getting hold of that sardine cake that he could smell in my pocket!

Finally we were to give our pups a nice long cuddle. A lot of the pups weren’t happy about that but Biggles was in his element – as always he rolled onto his back with his little eyes pleading me to give him a tummy tickle! He’d stay like that all day if you let him.

Next we swapped pups so that they got used to being handled by lots of different people:

The beginners were all taken into a corner to learn the basics. As Biggles is such a clever little boy (and we had been practicing) the trainer used him to demonstrate how to sit, down and stand. Biggles did very well, but as the trainer handed him back to me he quietly suggested that I work on bite inhibition for next week – it seems that along with that tasty sausage Biggles was nibbling a bit of juicy human finger as well! :)

Finally the class ended with a little recall practice. Biggles did very well and came running the moment I called – he probably didn’t run the fastest, but he definately had the cutest recall :)