My new website, new vest complete, hormones, our postie, outside training!

11 months 5 days old

So it's been a while since my last post! There are reasons though, so I am sure that you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

The main reason it has been so long is......trumpet rally and drum roll...... I have a new website, http://www.ozworkingdogs.com.au which I've been doing a lot of work on!! You still can't actually buy equipment on there but we are getting very close! Take a look and see what you think. Of course it's only a start, but I have to start from somewhere. It has taken a fair bit of work just to get it to that stage. It's only a day or so away from when people can actually start ordering products. I need to get my 'sewing room' in order just in case!

My other excuse is that I got conjunctivitis a few days ago. I woke up at like 4am with my eyes glued shut and went and looked in the mirror at a red eyed angry beast. It was actually slightly better at 8am when we arrived at the free (got to love nationalised health care) drop in clinic, but I've been putting drops in for the last couple of days and while they are mostly better they still feel a bit sandy. Not very pleasant, but I know I've been going through a low immune period with all the aches and pains and funny skin rashes that come and go in a matter of days or even hours.

Knightley's new vest! You can purchase it from
http://www.ozworkingdogs.com.au It has a Y shaped chest with
a padded chest plate which you can't see in this photo because of
all Knightley fur (and his leash), but have a look at the website for
more photos. Oops at cutting off his nose.

Knightley seems to really like the new mobility vest I've made him,and my other designs which I have been busy testing out. We've had several training trips into public, some really great, some lacking a bit in focus. By and large he continues to do really well. I've started to do some more work on his retrieve, which I just haven't been using enough as it isn't perfect yet so sometimes it is easier to hurt myself by picking things up instead of calling Knightley over, especially if he is drowsing. So we are doing a bit of a refresher course on his assistance retrieve, which seems to be quite needed! He is great at holding things though, really just awesome. I did some work with a knife the other day - just a blunt butter type knife - as he isn't keen on metal in his mouth and despite not wanting to hold it at the beginning he was happily holding for up to 10 seconds by the end of the short session. Good boy!

He remains completely full of energy, bursting at the seams every morning... and very hormonal too. Hubby went out to a movie with a work friend last night, and the work friend dropped by our place before they went out and said hello to Knightley. Well, let's just say that Knightley was *very* hormonal..... He does very occasionally hump hubby, but never me thankfully. 34kg + (75lb) of dog clinging onto my already sore leg does not sound very pleasant to me and maybe he realises that. Or maybe he realises mummy is not to be messed with ... at least, I hope so! He was very very excited to see someone new, or more or less new, so I think that was part of it. Still, I was quite shocked!! I think I should probably try to get people around here more often that Knightley doesn't know and work on his manners. Because last night they were quite atrocious.

The uniform posties wear in Australia - although this one is not
'our' postie and appears to be a postwoman, which is certainly
rarer! You can see why I was bursting with pride when he was
14 weeks old and happy to have that thing with the yellow creature
on top roaring right up to him. What a good boy he is.

Speaking of people Knightley knows and doesn't know.... Knightley has a favourite postman. Here in Australia our 'posties' deliver our mail from lightweight Honda motorbikes. Our postie has a real thing for Knightley and we get along well too. It has meant that since Knightley was a little puppy he is not at all scared of motorbikes, because they mean one of his favourite people! He won't flinch at all as our postie rides straight up to us, and will jump straight up onto his hind legs to say hi to his favourite postie. It's pretty impressive when you consider the noise, smell, heat and the uniform and visibility clothes our postie wears. I am so proud of my pup at times like that, he really isn't scared of anything! Saying that though, a funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago. We were out on one of our walks, me walking sloowwwlllyy with my crutch, and Knightley dashing around me in circles on his flexi lead (still can't trust him if he sees another dog or a flock of parrots), and our favourite postie appeared going down a nearby street, across an expanse of grass from where we were. Knightley was curious but not instantly transfixed like he usually is if the postie is anywhere near our house. Anyway, our postie saw us, and after delivering some mail to a few houses, came blaring across the grass area towards the trees where we were walking. Knightley just didn't recognise him and was a little unsure.... tail down, moving closer to me, until the postie talked. Then suddenly it was like he slapped himself in the face and said "OH!!! It's HIM!!" and became a different dog, racing towards his friend. It was very funny, he just didn't see him as the same person because of the different environment. Dogs really are poor generalisers.

I did some recall and focus training outside on our walk today with Knightley. Boy does he need it. His 'work' such as it is is much less attentive when he is outside, and when he isn't dressed and I allow him to just run around outside he likes to virtually pretend I don't exist. If I have an interesting object in my hand I exist straight away though! All the smells, dogs and people in the distance exist a LOT. So we did recalls with the reward of ROAST chicken (naughty to get cooked meat, but it did the job), and did eye contact (focus), but he was so hyped up and usually is in the morning for his walks, that we couldn't get passed a second or two. So I switched tactics, and for the rest of the walk, gave him chicken every single time he looked at me. That worked nicely and I should be doing it much more. Do I need to bold that for myself??? Lol.

So it has been pretty busy getting this business stuff done, getting a business registered, getting the name registered, getting a business PayPal (only way to pay so far, sorry), then getting hosting for a website, buying the domain name, and finally making the website and actually getting the shop working. Phew, but it's nearly done - to a rudimentary level. Let's hope it isn't all for nothing!!

I have an event to go to tonight at our Arts Centre. Our Executive Director of 3.5 years, the one who has been so good to me and given me casual work, is leaving suddenly and has a farewell tonight. I am pretty sad about it, it won't be the same without her, and my loyalty to the place slips a bit. If my business does take off, it means I have less reason to put in as many hours, as there are really only a couple of people I push myself to go in every week for - aside from the work itself. That is, when it is only volunteer work and not paid! Either way, I am very sad. I am wearing a nice black dress that should easily fit as I bought it when I was at my biggest and I have now lost a little over 6kg (nearly 14lbs) on my mission to become well enough and fertile enough to conceive and prove that doubting obstetrician wrong!!

Hope you are all well - or as well as can be. Take care, hugs and enthusiastic doggy smooches from Knightley.

Knightley needs practice working outside, nice walk, new (used) car and NEED A WEEKEND AWAY!

9 months 4 weeks 1 day old


Well it has been quite a busy weekend and I am terribly tired. Hubby and I went to the shopping mall yesterday and took Knightley. We needed a few bits and pieces, and hubby needed to swap a bracelet he'd got for me for our anniversary for a smaller size (obviously he thinks I have fat wrists!). Knightley did very nicely and got lots of attention as usual. We practiced our new 'flat' - the new cue for down. It was great, no delay, obeyed on every cue with no problems after starting with a bit of shaping. It's looking like I am going to have a solid down, hopefully for Knightley's whole life. Now time to start proofing it with even more distractions.

We then went and looked at some used cars. Our current car is getting pretty old and needs replacing but our finances aren't yet at the stage where we can buy a brand new car. So we looked around, found a possibility or two, but decided that there were some more cars across town we wanted to look at. I was absolutely exhausted after walking around a shopping mall and then a bunch of car lots. Knightley had been pretty well behaved up until then but as my attention was going and I was walking slower and slower he started misbehaving a bit. Of course that is the time I want him to step up and become a solid unmovable object! So he really did the opposite unfortunately and lost his focus. Last weekend when he helped me through my migraine he did great and focused despite me completely off in la-la pain land. However this time was outside, and Knightley doesn't focus well outside at all. So while it was very unfortunate he couldn't help me when I needed it, it shows me what I need to focus on. He can obviously be trusted a little to keep it together inside when I am not able to focus myself, but outside is another matter entirely.

Knightley meeting a lovely older female Golden on our walk
today. Knightley pretty much loses his mind when he meets
other dogs - he just loves them so much!

He woke up with a bit of a bad tummy this morning, so hubby and I took him for a good wandering walk where he could empty his poor tummy if need be. After the horrible weather earlier this week there was a good stream of water flowing in the storm water drain that runs by our house, and it's pretty good and clean so I let Knightley romp in it. We met another Golden Retriever on our walk today, a 12 year old female. Knightley ran around her like an idiot, trying to get her to play with him... trying and failing really. It made me realise that Knightley really is just about fully grown in size, although he has an awful lot of coat growing to go!!

My very happy rather wet Knightley.

He absolutely loves these walks. Since winter has come along it gets dark too quickly to get to the dog park more than once or twice a week. So I bought a flexi type leash (a leash that retracts and goes up to 5 metres in length) so that we could have walks along grassy areas and he could run around sniffing and just generally having a ball. Unfortunately I can't yet trust his recall there as it's a place where lots of other people walk their dogs, cycle, and so on.... and Knightley just loves people and dogs far too much. One day we'll get there. I don't approve of flexi leashes anywhere but where they will cause no possibility of harm to people when extending or retracting. As the lines even for a big dog are quite thin, they can even cut flesh when extending or retracting. If you only ever use the retractable/extending aspect of the leash when there are no people around you, and keep the leash locked in a fixed position of 180cm (6 foot) or less at all other times I think they can be useful. It certainly gives him the chance to get a bit of exercise but I can still walk very slowly. They can be especially valuable tools for those with service dogs who are permanently in a wheelchair, as they need many different lengths of leash throughout the course of a day.

Dashing through storm water at a breakneck pace. He's definitely
a water dog!

Speaking of wheelchairs, I have hip injections tomorrow that are supposedly meant to help my poor hip but past experience leads me to expect a week of virtual immobility. Whether after the tissue damage has healed there will be some temporary improvement is anyone's guess really. I'll be relying on Knightley's retrieve a whole bunch. I also don't want to skip my work on Thursday/Friday but certainly by Thursday I don't expect to be all that mobile. I could use my walker I guess but I am inclined to take my wheelchair. It's a heavy steel cheap thing I got when I first got sick but it's comfortable at least. I've been wanting to get a good quality lightweight wheelchair for a while now, but to get funding assistance from the government I need to see an occupational therapist, and I know to see the hospital ones the waiting list is pretty long. I've been thinking about another option so I may look into it. Whenever I am flaring and hubby and I need to go out, we take the chair.... but it is so heavy I can barely push it myself, especially if I am particularly sick. I'd also like the option of having Knightley help me with the movement of a wheelchair, in which case I should be minimising weight and resistance as much as possible.

A rather blurry photo of what we hope is our new car as of
tomorrow. LOTS of room for our big boy in the back!

Anyway, after our walk today Knightley's tummy seemed better, so we decided to take him with us to check out the cars over the other side of town. The big news is we think we have found ourselves a new (used) car! We took it for a test drive, and there were a couple of electrical problems, but if they are fixed to our satisfaction then we will go ahead with it. It's a stationwagon for a couple of different reasons, one of which that Knightley can go in the boot/wagon bit and get lots of room. It is pretty much exactly what we want, so we're going back tomorrow with a couple of other people to make a final decision. Unfortunately it will be after the local anesthetic injection from injecting my hips wears off and I'll be in a bad way... but it's just the way the world works out!

I've been wanting a holiday for a while now, but the state of our current car (not great, needs a lot of maintenance to be completely sound) has put me off a bit. However I think a new (used) car needs to bond with us and have a trip down to the coast! There's a pet friendly farm (with four very friendly border collies apparently) that has cabins and rooms, which I've been wanting to visit for many months that looks wonderful. I really need to get away - I haven't left Canberra since we travelled around temperament testing puppies in order to find Knightley. I wouldn't really call that a holiday though, and before that I left Canberra for my wedding a whole year ago in England........ it's definitely time for a weekend away!!

So, a very long very tiring weekend with several painful days to come. I need to get a semi-early night, so I'll be off now. *waves byebye*

Great training sessions! Retrieve basics,eye contact and resource guarding

7 months 4 weeks old

We've had some great training sessions in the last couple of days, really getting back to where we were before on our retrieve holds (and more!) before I stopped training them in order to concentrate on finishing Level 2. We've got to the point where Knightley will walk three or four steps on cue, take an object from my hand, and hold it with me for at least 10 seconds, 5 of which he is holding it by himself. I then start holding it with him again, then tell him "thank you!" and he gives it to me. The next step is to get him walking more like 4-5 steps in order to get the object, then to let go and have him walk to me to deliver it, hold it together, then tell him thank you. I have managed to get him maybe half a step towards me to give me his dumbell, but I'm going to wait until we have at least a 15 second hold (together) until I push for a couple of steps walk towards me to deliver. Today I did manage to get him to take the dumbell from a stool on cue for the first time. It was the first time he didn't just take it from my hand. So we're definitely getting there!

I'm trying not to rush this, but I'd really really love a trained assistance retrieve a bit ahead of schedule!! I have actually used Knightley to pick up things before, but in that case it is moreso his curiosity. For instance, I've dropped my keys, and I nudged them with my foot and made them 'dance' a bit to get Knightley interested as cold metal isn't hugely fun, then when he picked them up, I praised like crazy and lightly held his collar to stop him retreating to inspect his new toy, while quickly grabbing a treat from my pocket which I exchanged for the keys with again, lots of praise. The technique works to an extent, but only if I can tempt him to pick it up. It needs to be a cued behaviour - in this case, 'get it'. So, it's going pretty well.

Our eye contact, where Knightley needs to keep 15 seconds eye contact with me without me actually looking at him, is going well. We are up to 15 inside, but not outside. Focusing outside is not Knightley's strong point, especially around GEE - ARR - EEH - ESS - ESS ! (Better spell it out right now or he'll wake up as he lies beside me on the bed! That's how much it excites him! Although we are working on it). We did some eye contact work up at the local shops today. He really does find it pretty hard to focus with all those fascinating people around. I think it's a perfect place to work on this actually, but it's going to be hard to get up to 15 seconds in a very high distraction place like the local shops after 5 on a weekday.

The Infin8 halter by Black Dog. It is a martingale collar, with a
figure of 8 halter that wraps around the muzzle. You can start
with the figure of 8 part fairly tight, giving you good control,
then slowly loosen and loosen it, until really the dog is just
wearing a collar. It's a great way to transition from a halter to
a collar successfully. Unfortunately they don't have a tan
option, so as to cause less visual disturbance to Knightley,
so I went with red as dogs see red very badly.

We are working hard on our loose leash - SIGH! I wrote an email to the trainer I wanted to work with, and got a reply saying she is taking a break at the moment.... grrrr. I did talk to a guy a while back about helping me, just not sure if he was the right fit. Maybe I should just try him anyway. I think Knightley *is* learning to give to the leash pressure and fight it less in the face of high distractions. He loses his focus on me though, and if there is something like a possum around (there was one walking along the fence just now outside, Knightley was quivering like a violin string!) I simply may as well not exist and it takes some significant force on his collar to get him moving. I am trying *one* more halter as a training device.... it's one I considered before, the infin8 by Black Dog. We'll see how it goes.

I did make an interesting discovery though. When we are doing public 'assistance dog' training, Knightley automatically goes into 'assistance dog walk', which is a very measured walk, almost a plod lol. Last time we were out practicing our public manners, I tried him with only his collar, and he was actually quite good, there was barely any pulling. Far better than he is just doing loose leash. I suppose there could be a few different reasons for this, but whatever the reason, perhaps I won't actually need the halter much afterall.....

I have noticed something a little worrying in the last week or so - the development of a small amount of resource guarding. He growled at me and did a wrinkly face when I tried to take a bottle cap from him, and I was pretty shocked. He has also been very protective of the food I've been feeding him, which obviously being raw, is very high value, so isn't that surprising. I was pretty shocked about the bottle cap though. I am being very very careful to 'trade', giving good treats for whatever Knightley might have in his mouth (he is a golden retriever puppy afterall, and despite his training, he likes getting things in his mouth as much as possible!), and giving him total privacy when he is eating so he can relax with the food.

Immediately after the bottle cap incident I went and ordered the book Mine! by Jean Donaldson, which is meant to be *the* best book for resource guarding problems, so hopefully I can nip any behaviour in the bud. I've also ordered some new equipment from my custom leash/harness maker, and one of those is a leash belt, with specially made double ended leash, so I think we might do a bit of umbilical leashing to put Knightley in his place., I'm thinking some other techniques from Sue Ailsby's "Leading The Dance" wouldn't go astray either, which is a program for behaviour problems that includes operant conditioning techniques (clicker training, basically!). Follow the link to Sue's page on the link sidebar if you're interested in reading about Leading the Dance. I am not hugely surprised about the timing this has come up - 8 months is a big time of change and hormones for dogs, I was almost waiting for something to happen with my almost perfect pup! If this is all, I will be lucky!

Lots of zen, interesting raw food and the dog park!

7 months 3 weeks 5 days old (100th post!)

I'm doing lots of work with Knightley on zen and focusing on me at the moment. He has always found grass exciting, so I am trying to keep him calm every step of the way towards the grass. I should have done it from the beginning really, but I guess I've been too busy thinking about other things when I'm with him.

I'm going to really start working on sniffing zen and normal object zen as well. We had a small training trip to the local shops today, just 20 minutes or so of walking around with him in his vest, practicing good assistance dog type behaviour. He was pretty good, but does get a bit sniffy occasionally, which is a no-no. So we need to practice no sniff rules. Also, when people reach their hands out towards his nose to try to say hello (encouraging him to sniff), he will reach out to sniff. He does respond to my 'leave it', but I need to get it automatic, so he won't reach out at all. You'd think with three "do not touch" patches people would realise, but people just aren't observant in this day and age!

Knightley beginning to eat an ox tongue! It was a big hit,
although it took a lot of effort and time for him to get through
the entire tongue. Tongues are known as natural tooth brushes
as the roughness of the texture cleans the dogs teeth - naturally!

I bought some awesome food for Knightley today while I was out. I got him an ox tongue, beef liver, kidney and some whole raw fish. He had the ox tongue for his evening meal, and it was a hit! Apparently it is great for cleaning teeth as it has that really rough texture on the outside the dog needs to get through. He had to put a lot of effort into eating it, and was pretty tired out afterwards. That's one of the many things I love about feeding raw. It really gives him a release for that tearing, ripping, destroying behaviour, that dogs really do need. I'm about to start him on a raw egg a day too. I've ordered some beef hearts that should be here on Tuesday, and that is probably the cheapest red meat I can get for him. Looking forward to seeing how big a cow heart is! At the moment I feed lamb hearts regularly, but they are pretty small.

Playing nicely with little dogs and a puppy.

We continue to go to the dog park often and his behaviour is so different there than it was when we first started going 3-4 months ago. At first he was so rude and got quite a few snarls from adult dogs who told him off when they didn't want to play but he was being incredibly insistent. He was also extremely submissive back then. His manners are so much better now, and he's just a cheerful happy teenage puppy now. He's also a lot less submissive, although definitely not dominant. Just nicely in the middle of the road, which is a good place for an assistance dog to be. I love having such a great dog park so close to us, and I think Knightley does too! He's off like a rocket as soon as we get there, and is completely exhausted by the end of our time there. Sometimes it is hard to convince him to walk to the car! I'm not looking forward to going there in winter though! It has cooled down a lot here recently, especially at night, and gives me an idea of what winter will be like at the park. Not my idea of fun, although Knightley will be fine with his lovely fur coat.

Knightley in the car on the way home. From the very beginning, starting when
he was eight weeks old, I taught him to be calm and well behaved in the car.
It has definitely paid off!

A halter for short term, some new Level 3 work and a big puppy!

6 months 1 week old

Knightley a couple of weeks ago with his Freedom Harness
on. I chose the Freedom Harness because it is said to be the
best for not obstructing the natural gait of a dogs shoulder.
Many other no pull harnesses sit right over the dogs shoulder
joint. The Freedom Harness has been a great tool for teaching
loose leash walking and has made out walks much more
pleasant. I just think I need a halter to train some public manners
but I don't want Knightley wearing it for long, no matter which
I choose.

I've been thinking in the last couple of days about getting a halter of some sort for Knightley. For a while I was quite adamantly against head halters for dogs, and I am still not particularly approving. I think they can have quite a negative affect on sensitive and submissive dogs because of the way it wraps around their muzzle - which is a psychologically sensitive place for dogs. Especially for clicker dogs, it can stifle their creativity by putting them into a rather zombiefied state of mind. I also think they tend to become a crutch, like so much training equipment that is 'too easy'. Training equipment is for *training*. It is something you use for a month or maybe even six months.... but in that time you transition back to a *FLAT COLLAR* once your training equipment has done its job. That is what my Freedom Harness for Knightley has been for, and has by and large done a very good job. Recently on our walks there has been virtually no pulling, and I have started putting a leash on his flat collar as well as the harness so he gets used to not pulling when having a leash on the flat collar. Soon I will leave the harness on, but only have a leash on the collar. The association of not pulling whilst in the harness will help keep him nice and loose on his leash.  However, despite a LOT of progress, when we go into public, especially particularly exciting places, a front attach harness is not enough to stop the pulling, and my thoughts are perhaps a halter for a short time, for the anti pull and calming effect would be welcome for the training benefit.

My favourite option at the moment, a Training Halter by
Black Dog - an Australian company who makes top
quality equipment.

I have been looking at the different possibilities, and there are certainly quite a few these days. Of course, the halti was the original, but it is the least favoured these days it seems. The Gentle Leader is the most common, but there is quite a bit of talk of cornea irritation around the place, and I am not sure if it's the one for me. The one plus is it comes in Knightley's coat colour, which is an important thing to try to get for a head collar - or at least another colour not easily seen by the dog as it is less irritating visually. The Snoot Loop seems quite popular in the serious dog training circles, but it is hard to get in Australia, so I would have to order it sight unseen from the US. Not convinced. I am considering going for one of the halters made by an Australian company called Black Dog (they do international orders). They do two different designs, both of which are a little different from the 'average' dog halter design. The Infin8 is a halter that wraps around the dogs muzzle and clips onto a martingale collar. Instead of attaching your leash underneath the dogs muzzle, you attach it to the collar part. Certainly different, but it encourages transition back to a collar quickly. I like that part, if it actually does work. The other one is called a Training Halter, and is a bit more traditional, although it is meant to move a bit more freely with the dog and avoid any cornea irritation. It is somewhat similar in design to the Gentle Leader though, it just has more parts that move independently, which is probably a good thing. I think this may be the one for me. Here's a link to the Black dog halter page.


So anyway..... after working on Level 2 for what seems *FOREVER* and being so very close to finishing it, I decided to move onto the beginning of Level 3.

This morning we reached a 1 minute relax for the first time!!! Yipee! Granted it was with no distractions, inside.... but it's a milestone. I need to start doing it outside some more. As with any training you need to set yourself up to succeed, so I will make sure that Knightley is nicely tired out when I really try to lengthen his times outside, so is more likely to really relax and maybe snooze. After a walk, or a trip to the dog park would be ideal.

Our sit and down stays still aren't up to a minute, and I haven't finished the homework for Level 2, although I am close there - watch out for it as I will post it here!

Other than that, we've finished, and we're bored just working on the same thing all the time. The beauty of Sue Ailsby's Training Levels is that every Level teaches similar behaviours, although there are new behaviours in each Level, especially so in Level 2 which is packed with new stuff - Level 1 is very basic. The fact that the behaviours are all similar, and that they go in the same order each time means that you can almost finish a level apart from one or two things at the end of the last level, and safely go onto the beginning of the next level without bumping into stuff that you're not ready for. Sue recommends that when following the Levels in her books, to go through then as written. For instance, the first behaviour in Level 3 is zen. Within zen Level 3, there are 6 steps, each building on what you have already done, and also 'comeafters', which is kind of like proofing and bonus points.

After Zen comes focus (watch), which we are also good to go ahead on. Both Knightley and I work better learning multiple new things at the same time, so I will work on zen and focus until all steps there are done - or very very close to, before going on with Level 3. This is not how I did Level 2 as I was using Sue Ailsby's free online Training Levels when I started some of the Level 2 behaviours, where she doesn't suggested you go through in order, and doesn't have anywhere near as many things to train.

Anyway, we did some great work on Level 3 zen and focus. We have already been doing door zen before now - where he doesn't go through a door until asked to, but Level 3 gets you to do it for longer, then as you walk in and out the door carrying things (eg getting groceries in from the car), and then eventually with someone at the door, but still with Knightley controlling himself and waiting for a release before he would be allowed to go out (or not). We got up to the part where I could go in and out the door carrying things and he would just sit there. At first we did it with an internal door, and then leashed at the front door. He did great. I know with a person it will be much much harder. He goes nuts with people at the front door.

Focus was great too! It is wonderful doing new things, I think Knightley really got into it too. Usually when we do our eye contact work it is from a pretty close distance, but Level 3 builds on the short distance and gets it longer, and the time longer too. It then asks for your dog to watch your eyes while you actually don't return the eye contact. Knightley was already fine with the 15 seconds asked for step 1, then the 2 feet and 5 seconds for step 2 was great too, step 3 was 5 feet and 10 seconds and that was great to see him doing that  - although whenever we do stays he usually keeps eye contact so we have practice at that. You might notice whenever you initially increase the distance you lower the time. This is because whenever you make something harder for the dog, you should make something else easier. Just because Knightley can easily do 15 seconds of eye contact when he is sitting right in front of me, at a distance of 5 feet, I would only expect him to do 10 seconds - and that is after teaching him to do only a mere 5 seconds at 2 feet. When I moved Knightley out to 5 feet I went from 1 second, going up second by second. Every time you change something in a behaviour and make it harder, you should re-teach it like that. By re-teaching Knightley every time I made it harder, I was spelling it out for him, "yes, this is the same thing you did when you were right next to me, but I don't expect you to do it for quite as long as you did then, because it's a bit harder when you're further away."

The last focus step we did, since Knightley had had no problem with the previous ones, was using (in this case) a large glass door at night so I could see both Knightley and myself as we did the eye contact exercises, although a mirror would have been as good. The aim of the step was to get Knightley maintaining eye contact with me for 10 seconds *while I wasn't looking at him*. We started with normal eye contact for a second, then I would quickly glance at him looking at me in the window's reflection, then back at him then click/treat! Then it was two seconds at him, one full second window, then two seconds at him, window then back at him and c/t. Then one second him, two window, one him, two window, one him c/t. Then one him three window, then one him four window, then one him five window....... and then....... Knightley noticed his reflection.......... sigh. He kept wiggling around, wanting to watch me in the window not the real me! Or himself..... Sigh! And it was going so well. It was all I could do to get 5 seconds watch with me right next to him. So we did some simple sits, downs and relaxes and ended the session on a good note with some scenting games which he really does love!

Over the last two days we've done some more work with the shaver, and he's good with it on his feet, tail... everything except his head - which is pretty understandable! I'll be taking that one a bit more slowly. It is amazing what counter conditioning like that can get a dog to stand. Speaking of counter conditioning, if I do go ahead with a halter, I will be doing a fair bit of counter conditioning in order to make wearing it a pleasant experience, rather than an aversive one - as many dogs find them unpleasant.

We weighed Knightley today, on the way to the dog park... and was quite surprised at the weight he has put on since he was sick and got weighed at the vets. Let's just say it was good I gave him he extra 1/4 tablet for heartworm this month!! He was about 24.2kg, which is about 53 pounds. So, at a guess he was maybe about  23.6kg when he turned 6 months old (52 pounds or so). A recent thread on the Golden Retriever forum I participate in (link in the right sidebar) had a lot of people reporting their dog's weight at 6 months of age. Knightley is on the lighter side for a male still, which is good news, as all along I have a) been trying to slow his growth with a 'slow growth plan' to increase the likelihood of good joint formation and b) have tried to keep him lean, again to make sure his joints stay as good as what his genetics have given him. Extra weight in a puppy can be a contributing factor to hip dysplasia. I was very rigorous when selecting lines that had good hip scores and finding breeders I believed in. If Knightley had significant hip dysplasia that would spell a complete end for my plans for him. I'll find out in about 6 months when I get his hips x-rayed. Until then it's more of the same, keep him lean, not too much jumping, stair climbing, no weight carrying (eg a backpack) and no pulling weights. Anyway.....I was happy with that weight, many male GRs are a good couple of kg (4-5 pounds) heavier at this age, although he has put on a couple of kg in the last three or so weeks - a faster growth rate than it has been for a long while. He really is looking much older, I can barely remember that fluffy fuzzball we had those first few weeks!

Knightley, gorgeous fluffy fuzzball at 8 weeks old. I loved that puppy fluff,
 and was heartbroken when it all fell out at about 4 months old, leaving him
looking like a lab.

The closest I had to a similar position already taken and very recent! No more
fluff, although his coat is definitely starting to grow longer and get some
'feathers', especially his tail! He hopefully won't be mistaken for a lab ever
again!