Squeaky toys....JJ update

[buddy]

Squeaky toys for the dog are fun for a while....but he seems to have developed a fondness for the sound and now he adjusts the fluffy toys until he finds that spot where the little squeaker is buried and could go on for hours.....mean mom has her limits, lol. (he just walked over and put his head on my keyboard, has never done that...do you think he can read??? )

Some how I lost my gentle leader and I looked for days. I finally broke down and bought a new one. (which means I will find the old one right?) The girl at the store asked if I had used one before because she said she is not fond of them. (closer questioning, she has never had anyone explain what they are and how they are fitted, she thought it closed their mouths)...anyway she saw how he thought he was off duty (I can't take credit for this, he just KNOWS when he has that on he is a working dude) until I fit a new one on him and he looked at me, laid at my feet and waited patiently for me to say come and he got up and walked everywhere in the store with me, even to the two cats that live there. He just sniffed then sat nicely waiting. The girl said she had no idea. She changed her opinion. I showed her how you can throw a treat to him from far away and he will open his mouth wide and catch it. There is no limited mobility at least with the kind I buy. I had been taught how to fit it from a vet with a dog I had long ago though. Maybe some people dont know how to make it the right fit and that is what she saw, or maybe she just assumed but all I can say is it is the ticket for us.

I tell you, we have a lot of potential in this puppy. I hope I am a good enough owner to make this even more of a positive thing for Q. If they developed a good enough relationship and he was able to be monitored, I'd love for where ever he lives in the future to be able to have JJ move with him. I can't think that far ahead but it is worth training toward the possibility. (I admit, I'd miss him terribly)

 

[InsaneCdn]

Buddy... if JJ becomes a service dog for Q, he will have an active working life, and then he will need to retire. Which means... you will get to be JJ's "retirement home" to make room for his replacement to work with Q.

You need to teach JJ to put his toys away, including closing the lid on the box. And that he can't go get his own toy without permission. Then... when the squeeks get too much, teach him to "toys box go" (dog-english... has special rules), and the squeeks go away.

... at which point you'll have this puppy with really sad eyes begging at your feet, so you need to have some form of non-squeeky toy that he also loves, available for "instead of".

 

[Hound dog]

Sounds like JJ is doing well.

And I totally get you over the squeaky toys. I'm probably more patient than most with them, or maybe not lol, but Maggie loves her squeakies........especially the hard plastic ones. Thankfully so far, the grands are far worse about trying my patience with them than her.

I'm having an "I have too much energy, not much to do with it issue" with Maggie. She's not deliberately being bad, she's just bored often. And she's become of course a chewer, which we're working on with successes. But.........Nichole got her a new expensive harness, one of the really good kinds. Lucky for her the pet store was going out of business and it only cost 2 bucks. I thought Maggie was happily chewing her bone which was right there.......but no, she chewed through the front of the harness completely. So I put her old harness she has been wearing for months without issue back on.......and yesterday it was the same deal. ugh

So I'm giving her more yard time and encouraging her to run. Thankfully I have a good size yard. She's a fetch the stick, frisbie sort of gal......I won't do the stick for safety issues and currently I can't find either of her 2 frisbies. I tried to substitute a soccer ball........but she looks at me like I'm stupid. lol So I picked up one of the empty milk jugs I used during the summer to water the garden. You'd have thought I gave her the greatest toy in the universe. Maggie proceeded to run at full speed round and round the yard with it in her mouth, huge grin on her face for 20 mins. lol An hour later she went on her 3 mile walk. I did it again today, and will do so again this evening.

Training is fine. It's just all this puppy energy. Always before there was a child in the home (nichole) who would spend all their spare time playing with the pup or young dog. Now it's just me, and I'm somewhat both busy and boring.

As far as difficult child is concerned.............. All I can tell you is what happened with Travis. We adopted Rowdy 14 yrs ago so that he would have a buddy, a pal, someone to hang out with. Only it didn't work out as planned. So I still wanted him to at least bond with the dog........and made him walk him and feed/water him. We found out in not too long, leaving the feeding/water deal completely up to Travis is NOT a good idea, nor safe for Rowdy. Not over an extended period of time, at least. A few days he'll do fine. Beyond that is hit or miss. He loves Rowdy a ton, that has nothing to do with it. And Rowdy loves him a ton. It's just Travis sort of drifts off into his own world from time to time if you get the idea. Even now as an adult. I remind him each day about feeding/watering......I also prep it for him to make sure he does it.

Due to this alone, it would be unwise for Travis to have a helper dog unless he was living with someone willing to take on that part of the responsibility.

 

[SuZir]

Buddy: Glad to hear things are going so well with JJ. I hope he will give both you and Q a lot of joy. And of course be helpful with Q.

Janet: Have you tried making trails for Maggie? I have always found it the easiest way to exhaust all that puppy energy. Using their noses tires them much quicker than anything else. I tend to make my puppies work for their meals. I start in my garden/near by forest and walk with baby steps and putting one piece of their food to each step. They tend to quickly get an idea and then I walk normally and only put a piece of food every now and then and leave rest of the food in the end of the trail in container. First you can let a puppy see when you are doing the trail and let them go through it right away, but when they get better, you may want to do trail earlier and let them sniff it few hours later (and if you don't feel safe to leave their food in the end of it, you can just leave a bowl and take food with you while they are sniffing the trail.) Few trails a week (and first ones are short, like 100 feet, later they should be longer and have some turns) tend to keep energy level much more appropriate at home.

 

[Marcie Mac]

Wish squeeky toys lasted with Tillie more than 5 minutes. Minute she hears it squeek she is on a mission to KILL that thing and will not rest till it is out of there, along with every piece of stuffing. SO brings home at least one or two stuffed animals a day from storage, and by night they are all disembowled, squeeker or not. Its a real pain in the tush to go round every few minutes to pick up stuffing. Once in a while she will find one she likes and she will carry it around for days, even if it is twice her size.

Marcie

 

[InsaneCdn]

Lisa - for a really cheap frisbee substitute... try the lids from 1-gallon ice cream containers. (might have to get those from the grands, or other sources, as I doubt you go through buckets of ice cream now... but who knows what you have kicking around the house). When I was growing up, we did that with our pup... partly because they are fairly soft plasic, and therefore easy on teeth and jaws - but also because they are "free"... and pup was known to REALLY chomp when excited. We went through a number of frisbees before we tried the ice cream pail lids.