Monthly Archives: January 2013

01/18/13

How to Stop Puppy Biting

Puppy biting and mouthing is a natural and normal way for puppies to explore their world. However, using their mouths on people is inappropriate, and something we need to train puppies out of. This especially important for households with young children.

Puppy biting is an issue that needs to be addressed through training. It cannot be left and hope the puppy ‘grows out of it’.  You need to provide training and guidance.

Here’s a few pointers to help you begin to decrease mouthing behaviour in your puppy and train appropriate interactions for adulthood.

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01/16/13

The Week in Tweets – 16th January

Each week, we summarise the tweets from my Twitter account, so anyone who’s not on Twitter can still have access to all these great resources. It’s a huge list, so make sure you get yourself a coffee and a seat for an hour so you can really enjoy all this content.
But before we get started, happy birthday to my Mac who turned 11 today!

Photo of Mac from a month ago.

 

The Tweet of the Week

When I re-home dogs, I find it really hard to not just ‘information dump’ on new owners. I have so much to tell them, it’s hard to choose the most important bits – but it’s important that I do, otherwise there is the chance of the new owner becoming ‘overwhelmed’ and just ignoring everything.  Patricia McConnell (who writes the blog “The Other End of the Leash“, as well as a number of dog training books) has written a post on “The 3 Most Important Things to Say to Adopters About Their New Dog“.  It really made me reconsider what I need to do when homing dogs, and also gave me some reassurance in what I’m currently doing. A good read with good advice, and I had no hesitation making it my tweet of the week.

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01/14/13

Puppies – The Seventh Week

I put a step stool in the pen to change a lightbulb. Daisy immediately took herself upon this step, and sat, appreciating the view.

This is the week where I went, “I have only two weeks to get them sleeping in a crate at night!” and started crate training in earnest.

It was very hard with 6 puppies to do the kind of concentrated effort I normally do. When I have 2-3 puppies, it’s easy to get them into their crates with food, lock the door, and then soon after open the door again. With six, by the time I’ve fed the last one, the first one is crying to get out. Not what I aim for.

So, instead, I decided to test all the puppies with 5 minutes in a crate (on the 19th of December) to determine who would need the ‘most work’ and who was going to be easy. This was just because I had a big litter and, unfortunately, had to prioritise to get things done! Continue reading →

01/12/13

DO SOMETHING! Make a submission!

Currently, the South Australian government is seeking submissions on companion animal welfare (specifically dogs and cats).  That is, they want to know what legislation could be introduced to improve animal welfare and reduce euthanasia in shelters.

You need to act before the 16th of January 2013.

You can find more details on the submission process on the Parliament of SA website.

Below, I am providing both a summary of my submission, and the body of my submission, too. Though I welcome individuals to write a submission and use mine for inspiration, I hope that you add your own personal touches to the submission, and don’t just take mine ‘word for word’. (Though I personally don’t have a problem if you do – it’s just less powerful if you do!)

If you’d like to download the submission, you easily can: download selectcommittee.pdf

Update as of 16th January: This is the submission I actually made: In Response to the Terms of Reference

Otherwise, below is the document practically copied and pasted into this blog entry: Continue reading →

01/11/13

The Week in Tweets – 11th January

Welcome to our near-weekly segment: The Week in Tweets! This is where I summarise my weekly tweets (from my Twitter account) and choose my favourite as the Tweet of the Week.

 

A Cheating Tweet of the Week

Currently, the South Australian government is calling for submissions on companion animal welfare.  I think it’s such an important issue, I am going to break my normal ‘tweet of the week’ mould and instead just ask my readers to consider writing a submission.  There are a couple of great templates available from Deathrow Pets and from The Paw Project. For more details on the actual submission process, visit the government website.

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