Whoop! Whoop! New puppy alert!!!! (Malinois) General Chat

I love reading about you and Tia's exploits, I've read all 42 pages of this thread! She is obviously a little star!

Well done for getting to the end!! And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm absolutely loving our exploits, I really resent having to go to work.

Tia has had a very busy day today. Puppy class this morning, followed by walk around the park, followed by lunch and a snooze, followed by a very short walk to the village pet shop to stock up on pizzle and be cuddled by all the staff, followed by a snooze and a trip to see my brother and his kids. She excelled herself with my 7 year old niece. She was quite tired and happy to settle under my chair and be fussed and hand fed chicken by Ellie and then go exploring their house together. Tia just fits in with whatever I want her to do, bless her.

Tia just loves pizzle and spends many a long hour chomping away on the stuff. If the other dogs get too close or stick their noses in she will give a low growl, so it seems she values it quite highly. I have been practising getting her to swap it for treats and then give it back to her. Unfortunately she anticipates when I am about to do this and spits it out onto the floor and looks at me expectantly. I try to be sneaky and not let on what's going to happen because I want her to release it into my hand. She will do it with chicken wings too. Ho hum.....there are worse training issues.

I found Tia lying on one of the beds eating what smelt like dog poo the other day. I found the rest of it outside where it should be. Just now I turned around a found a small piece of poo on the kitchen floor and the rest of it outside. It seems Tia goes outside for a poo and then brings a piece back indoors. Nice one Tia!!

We have spent this afternoon gardening. This is why my prunings bucket is never where I left it.

We started at another training club/class last night, which is in addition to our Saturday morning class at COA. It was a bit chaotic, with lots of very bouncy dogs everywhere but very good socialisation. We were sitting next to a Dobe puppy who was the same age, so he and Tia wrestled whilst we were waiting for our turn.

Just watched the video Maxine - bless her she's gorgeous

One day I will get a GSD pup - they are so cute!

Good choice, you won't regret it!! I'm now a real convert.

When we were at our class on Monday one of the trainers came over to ask me about Tia. I'm not sure she believed me when I said I was having absolutely no problems. She raised an eyebrow and said "Oh she's perfect is she?" to which I said "Pretty much".

It got me thinking about whether it is my management of her or just that she's the easiest puppy on the planet. I think having two firm but fair dogs for her to play with helps a lot. All that energy would have to go somewhere else without them to bounce off. Whatever it is I hope it lasts!!

I'm sure it will Maxine - you are doing a great job

Cheers Azz.

She's getting bigger. Ollie doesn't look quite so huge...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=siCadsryCmA

It annoys me when trainers assume that if you take your dog to their classes then you must be having problems with it! Off course Tia's perfect stupid woman!

Cheers!


I have joined several different classes (2 currently with another 2 lined up for January), not because I'm having any problems but because I can't generate that environment at home or on our walks. I know how I want to train Tia, I just need to do it with lots of unruly dogs all around us. It's all part of her socialisation.

We went to our COA class this morning and Tia was one of those unruly dogs every time the action stopped. "Settle". What's that? I want to play and bark!!

She was very good whilst we we doing stuff and surprisingly did a beautiful "Stay" for 20 seconds with me 10 feet away.

Our walk today....

And this afternoon we went to watch a Working Trial.







Tia was fascinated....

And after the WT we went to The Parrot at Forest Green which was REALLY busy. It was full of people, dogs and small children. Tia lay down by my feet and put up with being sniffed, stroked, stepped over and almost trampled on. There was a nosey Beagle who kept straining at his leash and trying to intercept her liver cake en route to her mouth, so she snapped at him. But he deserved it.

Last night we went to our "Monday" class which went really well. We did some lovely walking to heel trying to ignore all the other bouncy pups and some lovely stays. She did several sit/stays for 20 seconds with me about 20 feet away and pandemonium going on all around. Best of all though was her game with a lovely Cockerpoo who was sitting next to us!

Tomorrow we are starting WT classes as apparently you can't start them too early. We will be tracking in no time.