Three Things

Firstly, there were three things that happened today and I took only this one rubbish photo! I am so sorry ladies!

Firstly, Minnie was ten month's today! Yippee but where is time going?

Secondly, I went to that weirdo Jane Withers' house where the lovely Carr's came down from ooooop north, Zann, Tits and Paula too. As you can see from the photo we were all a bit bored of Jane going on and on and on about her broken phone and Buffy just wanted to steal sausages :)

Joking aside, you can see from all the Blips what a fab time we had as always - it never fails to amaze me the friends who I have found over the internet :)

Home and we had the dog whisperer around on the night. Seriously, I have shed so many tears over the last week or so. I just could not see how we would get around this. Stanley is territorial, he follows us around the house, barks at people at the door and growling at Casper and Minnie. I thought we would have to banish him to the kitchen, put him in a crate, change how we live etc etc.................how wrong I was.

Isla came and she was so calm, and amazingly informative. It is totally fascinating. She used to be a horse whisperer and her knowledge is immense.

She spent 4 hours here and my knowledge has ballooned and the dogs are different animals.

We chatted about what they are doing, their behaviour, she watched them and we all got to know each other. After a couple of hours we went outside to do some training. Stanley knows the basics i.e. sit, paw etc but his recall has always been quite poor. Within 5 minutes he was sitting and staying whilst we walked away and said nothing for 10 seconds until we then called him. We then got him to sit and circled him - so he knows who is boss. Every time he moved we had to shout 'Bah' in a guttural way, almost a bark. then back to square one. We then did a third exercise which was harder as we walked backwards away from him, he couldn't see us so just had to wait for the command. This took longer but he mastered it.

This was called brain training and ten minutes of this was more exercise than 45 minutes of chasing the ball! Stanley was knackered! He did so well.

We then tackled his obsession with stones. When we sit in the garden he will bring stones to us and stare at them until they are thrown, he never lies down and relaxes in the garden. To combat this we had to wait for him to do it and then we had to water bomb him. After two times he realised what he was doing. We used the previous training to then get him to come back to us. It was truly amazing. He seemed relived to have this taxation broken. It must have been so tiring for him - Isla compared it to OCD and a form of stress.

We then tackled the barking at the door - again it was done using the 'Bah' training. It has to be seen to be believed. I could waffle on and on and on - she was here four hours so there was a lot covered. We could not believe the difference in the boys. Simple things like Casper pawing us means he is trying to 'own' us by getting us to pet him so he has to realise it is on our terms so he understands we are boss - at the moment, Stanley and Casper are both trying to be boss and they need to understand we are the bosses!!

I am happy to say that the boys are not banned from the sofas and they are both in our bedroom - not on the bed but in their beds. Usually Stanley is up and down and getting on and off the bed, last night he stayed in his bed ALL night!!

My relief is immense, I can see light at the end of the tunnel