Doggie Tips

Here's some advice and tips on looking after your cavoodle, and training, some of these are really good and obvious.

• Always Praise good behaviour - as with everything, if your dog does what you desire, always reward and praise the dog.
• Be attentive to your puppy -After eating, drinking, playing and after a nap, this will likely stimulate the dog to go to the toilet. When you find your dog sniffing and circling, walk the dog outside. Doing this will help you catch the dog, going to the toilet outside and you will be there to praise the dog afterwards.
• Element the odour - Your puppy will want to go again where he's previously been, so try to remove the scent/odour from the spot where the previous mistake was made.
• When the puppy makes a mistake - If the puppy does make a mistake, and you catch the pup in the act, then shout "No" and take the dog outside, if the pup continues the activity outside then praise the good behaviour. If you find a mistake after the event then don't attempt to scold the puppy or rub his noise in it, as he won't remember what he had done and this will only frighten the puppy.
• Dinnertime - Feed your puppy around 5-6 each day, as this will give the dog more time to go before bed.
• Control the time the dog is fed - if you control the times you feed the dog you are more likely to be able to control when the dog goes to the toilet.
• Leaving the dog -if you are away from the puppy for over 4 hours then leave the dog in a room that you feel more comfortable for the dog to toilet in, eg: kitchen, because the floors are usually easier to clean, and leave paper down. Training Mats are pretty good initially as the dog is attracted to the smell and the puppy is more likely to go were the mat is placed, rather than all over the room.
• Jumping - When you arrive home from work the puppy, while excited to see you will jump up. To discourage this, try not to give the dog too much attention as this will only encourage the behaviour you are trying to reduce. To reduce this gently turn away from, brush the dog off, this will cause the dog to return to the floor, having all feet placed on the floor. When all feet are place on the ground you can give your dog praise. Try not to overly excite the dog further because this may result in the jumping up again. Try to keep calm and talk to the dog in a low voice. Only when the initial excitement has subsided can you play with the puppy and give the dog the attention and love that it requires.
• Teaching your dog to sit - This requires a quite location. I tried this doing this with my nine year old son in the room, and it was hopeless because puppies are just attracted to kids and get distracted. When you have a quite location, then you will have the puppy’s attention. I started by getting the puppies attention even more by giving him a treat. Then I encouraged the dog to sit down, pressing the backside gently down while saying the command. Then I gave the dog praise and a treat. After a while, Archie eventually started sitting down without treats by himself. -cool

If you've got any further hints and tips to help me or others let me know I'd realy appreciate it.

Dog Toys

When buying toys for your pets it can sometimes be a waste of money. Spending your hard earned cash on toys that your pet does'nt like and never uses. Ok, so these are Archies favourite toys, and thoses I recon your dog will get the most use out of.

Ball on a Rope. These are great, you can play fetch with the toy and play tug. I've found that when you throw the ball, Archie will go and fetch it and he'l bring it back to me, only because he wants to play tugg. I've not sure if all puppies are like that but he loves pulling and tugging on things. I find that he also likes playing for ages by himself, waggling the toy with his head, I think you can see this on previous posts. It's also a great toy to take on walks in the open space.

Cotton Rope Bone. Basically this is a bone made out of cotton, again he like it because he can chew it and again waggle it from side to side.

Cat Toy. This is the surprise toy. We also have a cat and this cat is lovely and petite, but when it comes to toys she's really fusy. Anyway we got one of these toys, it's basically a little fluffy toy like a spider (a fluffy ball with legs) with an elasticated string attached with a plastic ring on the end. Well the cat loves it, I think it only cheap to buy as well. It's good because you can hang it from the door handle and the cat will play with it without your intervention.

Anyway, Archies discovered this toy as well and he loves it. While it's attached to the door, he pull the toy, it stretches and then pings off when he lets go and it bounces all over the place, then the fun is trying to catch it again. Archie will play with this for hours, he gets more use out of this than the cat does now. It's great because it you don't have to get involved and enjoy the entertainment watchin him do his thing. Great little inexpensive toy.

13 Weeks Old

So we've had Archie for about a month and he's just had his final injection.

On the left are pictures of Archie about 7/8 Weeks old, and on the right is him after 13 weeks.

So even though he's had his final injection he still can't to out on walks yet for another week. Arrrrrhh !

Stair Master

OK, the missus and the boy has taught the little fellow how to navigate up the stairs. This was the cats haven. The cat would climb the stairs and just stare at Archie and taunt him. Now he has mastered the stairs, he climbs up at every opportunity. The cat has found a new way to taunt him though, she now sits at the bottom of the stairs while he's still up there and taunts him, knowing that Archie can't climb down yet.

He's going for his second injection on friday 20th April 07, so hopefully he'l loose some of his energy on a good walk each day. Potty training, he's still inconistent with his wee/poos. He only does them in the kitchen but there is no real progress yet. He knows to do them outside yet still does the odd one/two in the kitchen even though the kitchen doors been open. Any sugguestion regarding this would be helpful.

Archie playing in the yard

Everyday, we go home for lunch to check on the him. We have a play with one of those balls on a rope toy thingies. He loves the fact that he can fetch it and then have a tugg on the rope bit. I noticed that Archie only really eats when he feels like it. Not the recommended three times a day.

We took him to a car boot stall that we had. Didn't allow him to run around but just to get used to people and the sounds and stuff. He loves people and loves the attention he was getting. We can't wait to be able to take him for walks, another week or two for his last injection then he can discover more.

Still not doing too well on the pottie training, but we live in hope.

Obi-wan-Cavoodle

Yeah ok, when he did come round after a bad hang over, he started doing his StarWars impressions again. "Feel the Force - Luke", it got alittle boring after a while.

Taking Archie to the Local

Took Archie to the pub. The pub is located near the canal so i did abit of fishing, enjoying the nice weather. I've realised though that the dog can't handle the ale.