Angel. Born June 30th.

Jacqui-S

Moderator
Location
Fife, Scotland
Angel did well on our walk at Chapters today. I brought along dried liver and used the book cases to my advantage, so that each time she pulled I stopped and waited, rewarding her return to me, and changing directions. When someone asked to see her, I gave them a treat and asked them to have her sit. To encourage calm greetings.

The one downfall to introducing her to people early is that she gets excited to the point of goldfish wiggles and oopsie pees.

Meanwhile, shamas was off somewhere else in the store having a casual wander with dad.
 
FINALLY, Angel is learning to SIT when she wants attention...she leans heavily n your legs...which is a problem as she's a good 65lbs...but every time she does that, I run my fingers along her back hip and say "sit" then pet her while saying "calm..good calm"

She cringes a little, but wags her tail. It's very hard for her to pull herself together to sit for attention like that..but he's doing it, and it's working. :)

The resultant decrease in Shamas' barking is helping in the household dynamic too. He's not trying to control her overexuberant behavior as much.

I'm also using Gentle Leader to calm her on the walks. Along with LOTS of treats, She's SO overstimulated on the walks, that any kind of leash/harness isn't enough to bring her attention back to me. I'm using the same tactic of standing still if she gets to the end of the leash, so she doesn't have the chance to pull..only the head harness lets me lead her gently back to me if needed
 
Angel got her license. Animal control sees her mix as Dane/Lab dominant.

They said with her breed mix, I should take her into have them look at her, so they could figure out how to list her on her license papers.

She currently stands just a little taller than Shamas, with a deep chest, skinny(but sturdy) legs, and a soft Dane head. Her ears are funny because they do everything from flop to straight up erect.
 
Angel just got her big girl voice

Both dogs have a bully sticks and Shamas came to rake hers, and she Told him. We were right there, and backed her up, sending Shamas back to the other room where his own stick is.

She's on the couch with her mistress and he was put in the dining room with my son


He's used to her moving over and letting him take things....we usually have to intervene and take from him to give back. Failure to keep peace results in the removal of the item in question to a high shelf.

Generally it works. There's almost no fighting over resources 16429699303555677147282634194555.jpg
 
I'm beginning to think Angel got used to Shamas' incontinence trips and stopped peeing every time they went out. she's asking about every hour....which is almost as often as he was having to go out while on Trazadone. .

If I make her wait, she gets fussy about the 2hour mark. That's how long between actual bathroom trips if she's got full access to food and water. Since we use kibble to capture good behavior..I consider any time she's around people as "full access" to food and water.

I'm trying to retrain the dogs to going out every couple of hours instead of every hour now that Shamas is on longer incontinent. A big part of that' will be Angel remembering to go pee every time we let them out. Some times she gets so excited she forgets why she's out there.....

Her owner (my daughter) says that in the day she's good for up to4 hours between bathroom trips now, and if food and water are taken up at night, she can go 8hours at night.

I usually let them both out at 11pm, and 7am on Shamas' schedule, so she adapted to that even as Amanda set her puppy routine
 
Angel had her first trip to the dog park today. We went to the one I started Shamas at, where they tend to self-moderate who comes in...older dogs go at one time, while younger dogs go earlier in the day.

We went early, with the young dogs so she wouldn't get in trouble for bad manners. Her manners aren't actually as bad as I expected. She was scolded a few times by a shepherd who wanted more space than she was giving him....but she barely noticed. She just ran off for a new playmate.

The group was good--well represented, in terms of breeds and temperament with attentive owners. I got a kick out of one young dog, who kept charging up and shouldering the people by way of greeting.....reminds me of Angel a month ago. Very glad she's grown out of THAT habit. We're working on teaching her not to lean so heavily on us now.

We stayed about 1/2 hour, then spent about another 1/2 hour trying to bring her in. Her recall's still sketchy at best...so I didn't bother trying to call her in. I'd rather catch her than let her practice ignoring recall. So my dad and I placed ourselves near her favorite dog, and the two of us, and the other owner waited for a chance to snag her. This lady had a slip lead, which she quietly slipped over Angel
s head as she came near....a trick I think I'll duplicate. From now on I'm bringing a slip to the park.

Once back at the car, we did treats all around--figure it's good for Angel to learn that coming out of the park leads to treating time.

Dad and I are going to take her out to a field on the horse lunge and work on recall together....stake the lunge into the ground, and call her back and forth until she's coming reliably. I know her mistress is going to want to take her to play, and a good recall's much preferable to catching the puppy lol! Her recall for her mistress is much better than it is for me....I only ever recall her from the backyard. I'm the ruiner of fun.

Which is why I've taken to leashing her to go out. So I don't HAVE to recall her from out back. When I DO let her out off-leash out back, I've been stepping out every few minutes to call her up to the porch for a treat and let her back out....but you can see her trying to decide if she wants to get close enough to take it. SO I give her the treat, and go back inside to let her play again. For bringing her in, I'm saying"time to go inside" rather than "Angel come" In time she'll learn that "Angel come" doesn't mean the end of fun time....


The other thing that happened today...and I'm quite pleased with the outcome....was that the clip n her leash let go. for about 8 feet she wandered off-leash. I pretended she was still leashed---simply stopped, put my hand out for "touch" and called her over. Then snapped the lead back on. Lucky she didn't notice the lead let go, we'd have been chasing her down for a good 45 minutes! That's the benefit to me having used the Flexi with her---I routinely give her "free" command and let her have her head, so that 8feet was easily within her normal "free" space.

I've been walking her either on the headcollar when I'm near roads, or on the front harness near/in fields. When we hit open space, I give her "free" and let her bound around like a puppy for a few minutes before drawing her back to walk beside me.

So I'm on the hunt for leads with a good Carabiner connecter now.....Shamas' leads are getting old and worn too, so I'll probably buy a few and replace all the leads in the house
 
I am struggling to consider that the dog that used to run around underneath my bed now covers most of it....I was laying there reading and noticed that her tail hung off one side of the queen sized bed.....and her paws were almost at the other side

For contrast....20210811_152738.jpg20220211_203417.jpg

She's struggling a little right now because her mistress got a new job and it's night shifts. So we started out putting her in the hall, where we leave her when we go to work...but she was howling at 3am. So I installed a gate across my open closet to create a secure den now she's sleeping there, with much less fuss. I feed her in the closet and Shamas out of it. And leave them both for about 1/2 hour with their food before letting them both out of the room.

I'm trying to limit how much the dogs are in the room, as Angel's taken to jumping on our bed and chewing things. We don't appreciate stick bits in bed
 
There seems to be a change in the power dynamics between the dogs lately.

Shamas has been known on many occasions to take from Angel. If she's got a toy he wants, he just walks over and takes it out of her mouth. If we see this happen, we take it from him and return it to her, saying "No Shamas-that's her toy right now. Go get your toy"

well lately, Angel's been reacting faster than we can, chasing him and jumping on him. This behavior gets her a time out because she has left him limping a few times, and the toy is taken away completely.

And the last few days..shamas has been seen to walk up to take the toy...stand there while she makes eye contact with him, and walk away. Her body language is not aggressive in any way, but I can see her shoulders tense, in preparation to take it back if necessary.

Shamas is no longer the big man on campus:dug:


I wouldn't say we have a power struggle...more of a subtle shifting in the dynamic. with Shamas giving way more often. She can get on my bed easier than him, and he doesn't like her in his space...so the bed is hers now....unless I'm on it to make sure she doesn't crowd him. He instead claimed the space I made for her in the closet-which is cozy to him, being about the size of a large dog crate with the three actual walls, clothes above and gate bars across the front so he can see us.

I HAVE caught them almost head to tail on the living room floor though :)
 
Wow. we weighed in yesterday at a whopping 74.9lbs!

I found a flea, and went in to get all the animals flea meds. Went with Revolution, as I'm fronting the cost for Angel's on top of my two until Thursday when Amanda gets paid. Plus...Matt was already at the vet for a pre-op, and I had to buy Shamas' meds.

But she has been whining and scratching, and I dont fancy a house full of bitey things...so I'll put up the cash for a day or two now that I know the cause of discomfort.

There's talk of her moving out soon...waiting to see how the hunt for an apartment with a big dog goes. In the meantime, I have plans to split my yard in two, so that Shamas can plod around without being jumped on. I'll put her in the half closest to the house, and him at the farther end, away from the neighbors dogs(which Angel actually likes)

I have a safety 1st gate that shouldn't do too badly in the outside...work nice to seperate the two sections
 
Honestly, Angel's becoming a perfect example of why I'm not a big fan of training using treats......If I have a bag with me, she's perfect.....ask her to do the same thing without the treat....she'll do it exactly once. After that, if there's no payout, she's just like ""that's ok, I'm good"

The one exception to this attitude is "sit" Because "Sit" is the key to all things good. If she doesn't sit, she doesn't go out the door/get dinner/cross the street/get her leash on/ get her leash off...and so forth.

She CAN Sit, down, walk nice, go place, Leave it, calm, drop, give, and a few other things I'm not recalling right now. IF I have a reward on hand. If I don't...well, maybe if she feels like it :/
 
First heat is confirmed. We picked up a doggy diaper to contain any mess from the suspected heat cycle, and when I took it off to let her pee there's spotting. So we're going to focus on back yard training for the next couple weeks. She can wear her panties to protect the furniture and bedding in the house. 1647899712235862749563415068462.jpg
Because she's so clean, it's hard to say how far into the cycle she us I first noticed her back end seems saggy about 4 days ago.
 
Had a repairman over yesterday...and realised that we failed to socialise Angel to people coming into the house. She went ballistic, barking, with the full line standing up on her back. Her body language tells me that this could easily tip either way....she wants to be friendly, because we've taught her people are nice....but she's terrified of this encroachment on her safe space and could easily go aggressive.

So I've asked my family to start dropping in for coffee. My brother came over last night with some wood for me...I had him stand in the hallway. She settled after a few minutes, as long as he just stood..no sudden moves. Laid on the couch across the room and watched him. I did not confine her in anyway, just had my brother offer treats when she ventured near him, and ignore her otherwise.
 
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