IF - Opinion

Opinion - for Illustration Friday - in Corel Painter

Have you noticed that opinions seem to bloom whenever they are given a chance? I remember, when a teenager, that a classmate said she hadn't realised she had so many opinions until she went to a dinner party and was asked what she thought about this and that.

Today I realised I had some strong opinions about Miniature Schnauzers - we met one that was a couple of years old and its owner told me very forcefully that:

• Miniature Schnauzers all bark
• Their recall, when called, is bad
• That they are terriers

Now I do realise that I've only had Teasel for a few weeks but one of the things I did before we got her was a lot of research about dog breeds and once I'd started to seriously consider a Miniature Schnauzer even more about them.

One book did warn that many of them bark as a hobby - however not all the owners I've met so far have had barky dogs and Teasel is the quietest, least barking puppy in the puppy class we go to - she can bark and will give the odd bark but not repetitively - and her mother didn't bark at us as far as I can remember - so although I do know it could be a problem its not necessarily so. (Any hints on what to do if she starts to get barky would be appreciated!)

On the recall... Teasel's is currently good (most of the time and especially when there is sausage in the offing) and certainly very good compared to the older ones. I assume that this is something we'll have to keep on working on. However I have noticed that none of the other owners take treats of any sort out to reward their dogs for returning - its as though they assume that just because the dog knows that its meant to come back it will and this is despite also knowing that their dog isn't that good at coming to them when they call... we currently take the tastiest treats with us when we are going to the park and I think that is something I'll continue for as long as necessary... it may well be that she'll always needs some sort of an incentive.

Miniature Schnauzers are Schnauzers, not terriers. In this country they are in the same kennel club category as the bigger Schnauzers (utility dogs), in the US the American Kennel Club has them in the terrier category but they were not actually breed from terriers so have no more genes in common with them that with other types of dogs.

What they do have in common is that they were breed to hunt rats and other small creatures. This means that they like to shake things and can be very persistent. But they don't have the same argumentative nature that so many terriers have though here too there are, of course, exceptions in both directions. As a child we had two West Highland Terriers - the first was as sweet as pie, the next an absolute monster!

Time

How come there seems to be so much more time in the day these days but its all filled with puppy?






Teasel photos on Flickr

Hot Dog!

This month there have been any number of synchronicities and general happenings around hot dogs - here are a few:

• The MSH had a category "hot dog" for which I submitted the above photo
• Despite being told not to feed a dog pork I've also been told by lots of people that sausages, and in particular hot dogs, are wonderful as treats during training
• Jim likes the children's cartoons about Charlie and Lola - he showed me one he'd recently recorded that featured Lola "training" a friends dog who is called Sizzles and "will do anything for sausages" - after watching it we went out and for the first time met a dachshund in the park
• Soon after this I bought a fox from the dog toys available at the vets... Jim then pointed out that Lola had a fox toy she's got Sizzles to play with... not so much a synchronicity as suggestion!
  
  
• We've enrolled on a puppy training course and one of the recommended training treats is hot dogs - when I saw the price of the ones specifically for dogs I was rather amazed - when asked the trainer said that those for human consumption were okay for dogs... so I got a tin from Tesco but I didn't like them much... then yesterday I was in Waitrose and not thinking about hot dogs at all when I overheard a woman rejecting the jar of Frankfurters that some Waitrose staff had found for her and then being led off to the fresh ones in the chillers.
  
  I stooped down (they were on the bottom shelf) and picked them up - it was the last jar there! And they are altogether nicer than the Tesco ones... if I have to share sausages with my dog these will do!
  
  I also looked at the ones in the chillers but they won't last long enough... Teasel is so small she only needs about quarter of a sausage to make lots and lots of treats!
  
• We've been out with hot dogs as rewards for coming when called a couple of times - she is pretty good at coming for these... the day I forgot them and attempted to use less tasty dried treats she seemed to go deaf ;-)

Yesterday in the park was this little girl in her Halloween costume a little early:

Catch up time!

This is what I won in Ellen of Creative Laundry's giveaway. Isn't it gorgeous! Thank you so much Ellen.

Looking at it is giving me ideas for using the same technique.

Though when that will be I've no idea - time currently revolves around puppy things.

I have had time to read some books - dog related ones - my favourite of the most recent ones is Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor (UK, US):

Its a great contrast to the No Diet Diet as its all about creating behaviours, skills (or habits) and using rewards to ensure that the best behaviours are encouraged. The book is full of anecdotes about training all sorts of animals, as the author used to train sea mammals to perform for fish or other rewards and has used the technique of marking a good behaviour (e.g. with a click or a whistle) and then rewarding it to train all sorts of creatures - including cats, fish, elephants, polar bears and of course dogs. And also of course humans - herself included.

At the moment I feel its an idea that I understand intellectually and think sounds really useful but really don't seem to be able to put into practice... so I've ordered a DVD to help me see it in practise... after all humans learn by copying others.

One of the anecdotes in the book was about a cat watching a dog being taught to rock on a child's rocking chair and being given meat rewards along the way. After an hour of training the dog had mastered it and the training session finished. Then with the rocking chair unoccupied the cat coolly got on and demonstrated how it should be done and to get its own meat reward!

Now you might think that being a copy cat like that makes the cat cleverer than the dog since it only had to be shown and it could do it too... but the dog will have got more than one reward as it went along... and a whole hour of attention too.

Last Saturday one of Jim's cousins was here having played a concert in Bristol the night before - she plays the baroque horn and let us both have a go - it was most odd attempting to make it sound and just getting little tiny squeaks coming out near my right ear - she then showed us how it was done and she found that there was one note that got Teasel singing too - since then we've had several family howls as we all sing along together unaccompanied!

For the monthly scavenger hunt this month one of the categories was "black and orange" - now I'm sure that was there so people could put in pictures of their Halloween things but this is my entry:

Puppy Visiting

Yesterday we went to see some Miniature Schnauzer puppies - this little black and silver bitch is the one I've chosen - we'll be going to collect her at the end of the month.

It was wonderful to see them all and very hard to choose between them. If I could I'd have chosen several as the hardest bit is the idea of separating them from each other. At least we'll be giving ours a home with nearly full-time human companionship - I just feel its not quite the same as have a sister or brother to play with!

I may be off-line rather a lot in the next couple of weeks - partly because I'm having a lot of problems with my connection to the internet - it just keeps on dropping which is frustrating - and partly because we've got to get the house and garden puppy-ready - as we've had no children or pets living with us here before I think there might be quite a lot to do - especially in attempting to make the garden escape-proof!

Any suggestions on what to look out for would be most welcome.