Happy 5 month birthday Knightley! A review of our time together

5 months old

So, Knightley is 5 months old today. Time has gone so very quickly!! He has gone from a tiny fluffy thing to a quite large boisterous but promising teenager.

The first photo is of Knightley the first time we ever saw him. We had a very long drive up to where his breeder lives, about 7 hours from us, and did the trip over a weekend. We were there to temperament test the puppies of his litter, a big litter of 11, 8 of which were male - and I wanted a male for the extra size and strength. There was one other promising male, but he struggled quite a lot when picked up, whereas Knightley was curious and affectionate - although he didn't actually settle down either! It is only now he is able to jump onto the couch that he is discovering the snuggle! In all other aspects Knightley's temperament test went excellently (see my blog post from then titled I HAVE A PUPPY!!!!!!!). My husband and I were absolutely thrilled as we had been through the disappointment of a failed temperament testing on a small litter nearly four weeks earlier. The puppies in that litter were absolutely unsuitable as assistance/service dog candidates and it had been upsetting (read post Temperament testing over, a bit sad). However, we were overjoyed with Knightley and returned to Canberra in high spirits and in a frenzy to prepare for our furry whirlwind.


This next photo is of bringing Knightley home 5 days later. Thankfully we only had to travel about 3 hours to pick him up, and 3 back. The photo is of him asleep in the little crate we used for the first several weeks of his time with us. He had already traveled for three hours that morning, so was pretty much exhausted and barring a couple of toilet breaks, slept the whole way home. It was the lull before the storm! Those first couple of weeks were intense!! Taking him out every 45 minutes during the day, every 2 hours at night, feeding 4 times a day and trying to keep him from taking the house to bits and from taking the flesh on our hands to bits!! But oh my was he gorgeous. Looking back, it did pass too fast. (Read Knightley is home).


This was our first trip outside the home, he'd been with us three days at this point of time. What a tiny gorgeous fuzzball he was - now he has lost 99% of that fuzz - all that remains is a touch on is ears. Back then he was like a luxurious rug or something lol! We took him to the vet that first weekend too, and he was a good little puppy, and admired very very much. We have got used to having our 'rockstar' puppy - I suppose most attractive Golden Retriever puppies get the same treatment.... people just can't stay away from him. I expect it will start to lessen soon as he is looking less and less puppy-ish now.

This shows a very big jump in time to a week ago or so. He's promising to be quite a big dog - he was a slightly above average puppy when we got him, and a bit overly plump. I have tried to make sure he has stayed lean during his fast growing period in order to ensure good joint growth. This is extra important for Golden Retrievers.who do get quite a bit of hip dysplasia (read previous post My last dog and preventative healthcare for the coming one). Late de-sexing will also help with his joint development.


This next photo shows Knightley in a rather proud sit making good eye contact. His training has come a huge way in the slightly over three months we've had him in our lives (brought him home on the 22nd of September when he was 8 weeks old). At first I was quite worried at his lack of interest in food, but as he settles down into life and *things* become less exciting, food becomes more exciting. I am sure once he gets de-sexed - which won't happen until he is 18 months old or so - that will if anything complete the cure, if we are still having any issues. I give a lot of credit to how far Knightley has come in these three months to Sue Ailsby and her Training Levels (follow the so named link in the bar below the title banner). Also some credit must go to the clicker training community in general.  I love how clicker work teaches your dog to really *think* and I love that moment when the dog just gets it! We were doing something new today where Knightley has to make eye contact no matter which way I turn, as part of his "watch me" command, and he was as pleased as punch when he figured it out. I love the fact that you don't just push your dog into a sit, but leave it to him to work it out! There are just so many more possibilities with clicker training.

These were some of Knightley's most recent adventures on Christmas day (see A great Christmas Day for Knightley, barking beginning to stop!) and I was thrilled by how confident my boy was. He is not a dog who worries about anything, or cowers away in a corner! He's always out there in the thick of things, charging ahead to meet the new people. I have seen him scared maybe twice in his three months with us - once when a big very noisy group of children all ran up to him, half on bikes, some on go-carts. He even hid behind me for a second! But once I asked them to speak more quietly and stop running, he recovered quickly and I have tried to ensure since then that his children encounters are all positive - and he does loooove the kids! The other time was fairly soon after he had got his last shots and we were starting to go for lots of walks. We met two rather large pointer type dogs who were rather exuberant and happy to just bowl into poor Knightley. That was the first time I saw his hackles come up, his tail was clamped between his legs and once again he turned to me for protection. But that's it, other than that, no more scared. Whenever he sees something he's hesitant about on his walks (rare, but has happened a couple of times), I get him to paw or nose touch the object after a few treats to get him closer, and then he always completely ignores it. I do hope he stays like this.

So, that was the beginning of our time together, and this is now. What a whirlwind. I can't wait to see what happens next. Each day brings further changes and I love seeing him mature. We've picked a truly lovely dog here.

Barking issues continue, food change, Knightley nearly 20 weeks!

4 months 2 weeks old

Knightley definitely isn't so little anymore. He's continuing to shoot up - perhaps even faster than before. You are certainly not meant to increase food around this age, but he was really looking quite skinny, so I have increased the amount I am feeding him.

Knightley showing his much less fluffy coat off. In parts
it is very much an adult coat. He really only has puppy fluff
left on his head. It is sad to say goodbye to it! He has
also lost his first 'canine' tooth. From what I've read they
all kind of go quickly from now on. Poor pup.

It is somewhat difficult to keep him at a good weight as I am going through a long swap over from one food to another. I had him on Nutro's Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy - which whilst it isn't a great food, it was the best I could get my hands on in Australia without having to travel hours, or having to make it myself. I recently bought a bag of Canidae's All Life Stages to swap him over onto. Theoretically I could have had him on it from the beginning, seeing as it brands itself as for puppies, as well as adults and seniors - but I wanted a food that was higher in protein (28%) for his first four months of life and the associated growth spurt. Now I would rather slow down that growth, although it is still reasonably high in protein at 24.2%. The most important thing is it is a high quality food, much better than the vast majority of muck for sale in Australia. It is a food imported from the US, which has only become available here in the last year or so... and you can only get it over the internet. Oh, and it costs quite a bit. Still, it is worth it. Knightley will even train for it dry, he likes it so much! Considering the slow growth plan has kept him smaller than he could have been, I think he will be quite large when fully grown. He is already 51cm (20 inches) at withers height, which is the minimum height for a female golden - so he's definitely on his way already. He should only grow another 10cm (4inches) or so as he reaches maturity.

Looking handsome. He has no feathering to speak of yet
of course, although his tail seems to be starting. Other than
that, and the fluff on his head, he looks almost like a Labrador!
If another person tells me that he's a Lab I'll scream!

We've had a few good outings in public with Knightley - and as long as he doesn't get frustrated by anything, he generally doesn't start his rather ridiculous barking. We took him into our town centre this last weekend, and he was extremely well behaved. It was the first time he has been around semi heavy traffic, and he didn't seem to notice it. I think it was partly because when he was quite young we used to take him up to our local shops every evening to get him used to people and bustle, and inadvertently, traffic. Upping the number of cars, and speed, didn't daunt him at all. It was a hot day, so we didn't spend much time walking around, but what we did do I was extremely pleased with. My husband and I then took Knightley, along with a rather late lunch for ourselves, down to our local lake, for a rather pleasant romp for Knightley. He even got his feet wet in the lake! But I hadn't brought a towel, so I couldn't let him swim. I was actually surprised at the number of people swimming in the lake. I used to swim in it occasionally when I was about 4 years old, but since then it hardly has the reputation of cleanliness.

Random photo of Knightley, soaked after we've gone for a
slow but longish (for me!) walk together. Whenever it's humid
or we go during a hottish part of the day, I make sure I cool him
down when we get back. Dogs can overheat much more easily
than humans, and Knightley enjoys getting wet, then dirty.

We continue to have barking issues though. I am getting a little stumped with it all. I don't know why he suddenly became barky. He wasn't at all as a baby, when we got him. He basically barks from frustration... for instance, if he's: penned, tethered, ignored for a long time, crated if we're still in the room, if I'm eating, if I have high value treats and he wants them NOW, when we are doing zen work, if we are out somewhere and he wants to say hello to someone (especially another dog) and I won't let him. He is now starting to bark just during normal day to day training, so what I am doing is just not working to stop the gratuitous barking. Some days the barking is almost nil, and I think the techniques I am using are working, and then there will be a bad day. Sigh!

All wet from playing in pool, check. Lying in dirt, check.
Mummy looking quite cross, check (heh heh heh always
so fun). Right, time to eat leaves and dirt and get really
 gross and mucky!!!

Despite the barking problems, I am training a few new things... and Knightley has officially done his first Assistance task for me! He picked up a sock, and gave it to me! Of course he probably wouldn't have been so eager to give it to me if I hadn't had some kibble in my pocket (the curse of the positive trainer!) but, I pointed it out to him, he saw it, picked it up, and came to me. I make sure I try to *always* give him a treat when I take things away from him that he is not meant to have, so that even surrendering things that he really wants becomes a pleasurable experience. I think I am going to have to step this up with even higher value treats because he has figured out that he is now tall enough to "counter surf" (ie, stand on high hind legs and grab things off the kitchen counter), and I want to make sure he at least surrenders them, or preferably brings them to me for treats. So in this case, even though he was meant to have the sock, Goldens have inbuilt sock obsession, and I knew he would need a yummy swap deal to give it up, so I was happy to swap food for a sock. I was happy with him, even though it wasn't a formal Assistance retrieve.


In my last couple of entries I mentioned getting a Freedom harness, made by Wiggles, Wags and Whiskers.... and earlier this last week, it arrived. It has really been great so far, but I plan to do a review entry on it, so I won't say much more about it. Suffice to say it is good for someone who can't risk a dog pulling them over. I am definitely happy with it, although it only *just* fits Knightley, but at least it means he can fit it for a while. It took me a long time to find a site that would ship it to Australia for something less than a house mortgage, but finally found 2 Hounds Design, which was great and has a deal with another company who does their very reasonably priced international postage. So that was great.

I can't believe Knightley is 20 weeks old in just a few days. That means we've had him for 12 weeks, and boy has that time flown. It's almost like I can't remember a time when we haven't had him. Despite whatever challenges there may be, he brings a lot of joy to my life that wasn't there before. Leaving this post with one of my favourite most recent photos of a very dirty Knightley.

Looking beautiful but very mucky. Knightley sees no reason why he can't
go inside, but Mummy sure does!

Targeting breakthroughs, a BBQ and big storms

My clever boy... looking distinctly un-clever,
with his mouth full of leaves, or dirt, or
twigs.... or something even less savory......

4 months 2 days old

Knightley really impressed me a couple of days ago. Over the last week I have started training a "shake" as well as more paw targeting, and I've finally 'shaken' (get it?! terrible, I know) his expectation of doing all paw targeting from a down. Anyway, I'd been using a small tupperware lid for his paw target training (with enough height that treats could just fit under it to encourage him to start the pawing process), but once he had got the idea, had changed to a big white sticker for the "shake". The next day I thought to myself that we hadn't done anything 'new' for a while so decided for the next session I'd try to get him targeting my leg with his paw instead. At first I had the sticker half on my hand half on my leg, and he adapted immediately to pawing a vertical surface instead of horizontal. Then I took it off my hand completely and he kept on pawing the sticker on my leg on cue. What a clever dog! I moved it around on different places on my leg, and he followed it around with his paw, albeit slightly inaccurately. I was as proud as punch and felt like giving him the entire can of wet dog food I had been treating him with during our training session!

So, later in our afternoon I decided to push my luck a bit. He enjoys his nose targeting, but so far all we have done is touching my hand, and touching the end of a purpose made wand. As soon as he saw the sticker on my hand the second time, he tried to paw it. Quite a few times! Not getting a click/treat made him rather annoyed!! Anyway, I cued a hand touch, several times, had him running back and forward in front of me. At least he had stopped trying to paw the sticker. Then I did what I did before, put it half on my hand, half on my leg. He tried pawing again. Obviously we don't have it entirely under impulse control yet!! I pulled it off and did a few more nose targets. Then put it on half/half and immediately cued a touch. He got that, and received a joyful jackpot. Then it must have clicked. He pretty much got it right from then on, although he did eat the sticker a bit when I cued touch. I was able to ask for "paw" or "touch" and mostly get the right one, although occasionally he tried the other one first before getting it right. So much learnt for one day!! I was very very impressed and proud of my puppy.

I'm thrilled to have this photo of Knightley standing still,
I have so few photos of him actually standing because
he tends to move too much! Too bad his harness is pulling
him out of shape a bit, but it is thanks to my Dad I have this
photo at all. Knightley is growing up so fast!

Last weekend my husband and my parents and brother went to a nearby park for a BBQ.... and we took Knightley. It was a great opportunity for him to socialise some more, and I was hopeful that he might be able to at least get his paws wet in the lake. However, it was a rather windy day and the lake was full of dust and everyone had pretty much moved away from the lake into the trees to get some shelter. He did however demonstrate his ongoing barking problem, although it could have been worse I suppose. I had taken a freeze dried kangaroo bone with lots of meat on it for him, but he spent half his time getting filthy eating dirt and leaves. SIGH!

Knightley in his usual 'rug' position with his legs splayed
out either side. You might notice the squashed tennis ball
in front of him he managed to find on a little walk. He often
carries things with him for minutes on end, and seems to
really enjoy doing it. I hope that means he will be good
at retrieving stuff for me!

Since the BBQ his barking has been improving quite a bit, although he will still bark if he thinks it will help matters - although it never does he seems to live in hope! He no longer barks whilst my husband and I eat in the evening, and that was his worst time by far. I have worked hard at showing him that his barking is unacceptable. Perhaps I will do a blog entry on how I am tackling his barking. It is a four pronged approach combining a 'quiet' cue and treats and 'good quiet' praise for continued good behaviour, with depriving him of my company when he barks (negative punishment) which also interupts the barking, and also slowly conditioning him to my departures so that he doesn't bark when I leave the room but he can't follow which has been one of his major problems.

Also since the BBQ we have had some pretty severe thunderstorms. We often do get some bad ones during Summer - and it is just going into the beginning of Summer now. Whenever we have got even mild thunder since we got Knightley I have made sure that it is a time for fun and treats. The storm we had not last night but the previous was severe enough that we lost power twice, the gutters overflowed to the point we had flooding in the house, and there were several crashes that made *me* jump. Knightley got a little mopey as the night went on, but there was absolutely no shaking, no trying to hide or anything like that.

Frankly, there has only once been anything Knightley has been scared of, and that is the kids who live on our street. There was a group of about 8 of them, half on bikes, a couple on go-carts and the rest running... and they all came towards him at once to meet him. That is just about the only time I *ever* seen his tail between his legs, ears back slightly, and crouching a bit. He even tried to take shelter behind me. I told them to pat him one at a time, to talk quietly, and to stop running... and within a minute he was on his back grinning his doggy grin. This was less than a week ago though, so next time he meets kids I will make sure it isn't threatening so it will be 100% successful and he won't develop a thing about kids. Anyway, I was very happy to see him unafraid of a pretty severe storm, although I know it often develops later in life in dogs. Still, so long as I continue doing what I'm doing with him, he should be just fine with thunder and lightening. I mean, he has struck up a friendship with the postman, who rides his motorbike right up to Knightley and I, and then Knightley jumps up (a bit naughty but he gets off when I tell him to) to say hello to a helmeted funny dressed man on a hot piece of metal that roars into life without warning. All this without a skerrik of fear. I'm definitely proud of my puppy dog.

He's looking less and less like a puppy, speaking of 'puppy'. He's got quite a lot of his adult coat, and every time I brush him I get huge handfuls of his puppy coat coming out. He's definitely no longer that fluffball we had in those early weeks. His back is a full 65cm long (26 inches) from neck to tail, he's about 45cm tall (18 inches), and he is 60cm around his chest (24 inches). Despite that his neck hasn't grown much at a rather pitiful 34cm (13.5 inches), and he has a LOT more weight and bulk to put on - at a guess he is about 16.5kg (36lbs). He turned 18 weeks old today, has eight big adult teeth and has another two coming in. It is truly amazing how fast these dogs grow up - and he's been on a slow growth plan! Crazy.

A change in sleeping arrangements, growing like a weed, food, our bond

Knightley in his crate in the living room, about to go to sleep
without us for the first time since we got him.
I'm such a cruel mummy.

14 weeks 4 days old


Well, our Mr Knightley sure is growing up. Tonight is his first night not sleeping in our bedroom with my husband and I. He's sleeping out in his wire crate in the living room. He seems to be doing fine, I can't hear any whining or anything. It is the crate he spends a fair bit of time in during the week when I am out at my volunteer job, and at various appointments and the like, so it's not like it is a new place for him. About a week ago it got to the point where he could easily sleep through the night without needing to do out to empty his bladder in the middle of the night. When we got him, he slept right beside me on the floor in a mini crate. When that become a touch small, we moved him a full sized adult fabric crate at the end of the bed. At first I was getting up 3-4 times a night to take him out, but over the weeks it slowly dwindled until as I said... at about the age of 13-14 weeks I found he could sleep 6-7 hours and not need to relieve himself. From then on his continued dwelling in our room was on borrowed time!! The only reason he stayed in our room for another week was due to my soft touch of a husband. Anyway, tonight is his first night into the cruel solitary world.

My husband holding Knightley at 7 weeks when we went up
to the Hunter Valley to temperament test his litter.
Knightley was the very last one we tested and I was
 beginning to give up hope!

Already only 9 days after the last photo you can see he
has really grown. He is a touch over 8 weeks here, my
husband holding him again. We've had him for two days and
we're wondering what we have got ourselves into!!

Physically I have really started to notice changes in him recently. He is showing the first signs of starting to get his adult coat by having what they call a 'racing stripe' down his back of differently textured fur. At the moment it is not darker in colour, although judging by the colour of his ears I do expect his adult coat to be darker than his puppy fluff. He has grown so tremendously but sometimes it is so hard to see - so today I took a photo of my hubby holding Knightley as we knew we had a couple of others of him holding him when he was really young. This one on the left was him holding him on the very first day we met him at the age of 7 weeks. He was so tiny then - the length of the hubby's forearm!!! Crazy, when you look at him now.

Today it also looks like he maaay have lost a tooth, although it would be a touch early. Either way, it should start happening in the next several weeks. His teeth look so funny in his mouth. His head has grown so much, but of course his teeth are the same size as they always have been, so it looks rather ridiculous. In a way, it will be just as silly having fully grown adult teeth in a little jaw. It's funny, I don't remember my last dog losing his teeth, although I was only 11 when we got him. They usually go through a stage when they only have a couple of teeth and eating anything much is painful, and they stop playing tug much etc. I really can't remember that with my Clipsy. Some kinda strange people out there have a bit of an obsession with puppy teeth and are rather overly keen to try to get every tooth that their dog looses as they grow up.... to the point of deliberately playing tug when there's a wobbly one, or just yanking them out, sorting through vacuum cleaner bags etc. I'm not fibbing! There's all sorts of weird stuff about people and their puppies teeth. I wouldn't mind Knightley's canines... but as for the little front ones, I don't care at all. Ugly little teeth!! I can't wait until he does get his adult teeth. I am sick of these ultra sharp puppy teeth.

What a huge difference. The hubby holding Knightley today
at 14 and a half weeks old. He has truly sprouted of late.
His adult coat is even showing signs of coming in and I
**think** he may have lost a tooth already.

So on the left is Knightley now, and wow when I compared the photos myself, especially the 7 weeks to now, it really showed me how fast he has grown. Weight wise he is not even half way to his projected adult weight. For someone who owned a small dog previously, the fact that a 14 week old puppy can be significantly bigger than that previous dog tends to be just a touch weird sometimes. It actually changes how I think about Knightley and what I expect from him. Sometimes I find myself getting annoyed with him, and expecting better behaviour - but the I have to tell myself that despite his size and despite how well he is progressing in our training together.... he is still a baby. Just one growing like a tropical weed on steroids!! The really scary thing is I have him on a slow growth plan, and he is actually **under** the average weight for the plan, although within the suggested weights. On another more extreme plans suggested weight he is over the average a little, although he came to me big and plump for his age and it would have been hard to be that extreme with slowing his growth. I try to keep him nice and lean to help with his joint development, without having him skinny. Sometimes it is hard to get it right, especially as dog treats never have the caloric content on the packages!! He came to us overly plump, but since then I have been happy with his weight, he has a nice 'tuck', and viewed from above he has a nice little waist.
When Knightley came to us, the breeder had been feeding him Supercoat, which in my opinion is a pretty horrible food, so I started the switch to a different food after a couple of days of settling in. Since then I have been feeding him Nutro's Natural Choice - both the dry and wet varieties. At first I added a little puppy milk to the food, simply because the breeder had been doing it, and I wanted to keep his diet relatively similar - plus, he loved it! I also sometimes gave him pumpkin when his movements where a little soft. Whilst Natural Choice (in my opinion) isn't exactly the greatest dog food around, it is much better than some of the absolute crap available, and I knew from the beginning that slow growth plans involve changing your pup over to an adult feed at a fairly young age to keep the growth slow, so I would have more opportunity to find a great quality dog food when that time came. Hence, I am planning to start a slow switch to Canidae's All Life Stages food, which is of a lot higher quality than Natural Choice!! Whilst it is called "All Life Stages" I wasn't happy feeding a food with typical 'adult dog food' protein percentage to a pup so young. So in maybe a month or so I'll start a very slow switch over to the Canidae ALS. It's quite an expensive feed here, as it's imported from the US. Not even my vet had heard of it... it's pretty new in Australia really, but very well known in North America for its quality.

The main problem with the 'bad' dog foods is what 'fillers' they put in to bulk it up, things that dogs largely can't digest well, or even at all. Sometimes dogs can be allergic to the ingredients, sometimes it contributes to tooth decay and so on. Corn is the worst culprit, so if you look at the ingredients list on your dog's food and see corn, especially more than once....... well, unless there is a very good reason to keep him on it, I'd be changing the food. The better foods are made of just one meat, whereas the dodgier foods often have a list like "Lamb, chicken, beef, turkey...". That is also something to steer clear of. Try for one meat, or two if you have to. Some dogs have a problem with wheat, some or ok. Canidae makes a range of grain free foods, as do quite a few other brands available in countries OTHER than Australia! If a food is good, your dog should be producing small droppings. I have considered feeding a raw diet (muscle meat, organ meat and bone in specific proportions, not as simple as chucking random meat at your dog), but decided that while my dog is still growing I would keep his nutritional requirements in the hands of the dog food companies. Maybe I will try it in the future.

Knightley half asleep in one of his normal sleeping positions.
He spends a lot of time sleeping around my feet when I am
sitting on the couch. The positions he gets into are absolutely
mad. I encourage him settling at my feet deliberately with treats,
because a defeat 'settle at my feet when I am sitting' could be
extremely useful if he does end up a working dog. It could work
 in a cafe, work place, visiting somewhere, medical appointments
.... anything really.

Training continues well. I have started trying to train a new trick, although so far it isn't going anywhere fast!! A lot of my time is training manners, things like training him not to eat brushes when I groom him, or to accept me brushing his teeth. Recently I have started training a positive interrupter noise, as I would definitely rather not use the 'ah-ah' I have been using. All the training and playing and just the time we spend together is really creating a close bond between us though. A friend who moved to Melbourne a while back came to meet Knightley a couple of nights ago after we all went out to dinner. After letting him out of his crate, instead of running to say hello to the new person, he ran to me to say hello, then to the new person, then back to me, then the new person, then to my husband, then the new person got most of the attention from then on. It is sweet how he follows me from the room if I move, how his eyes follow me. Recently I have been reading Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening our Relationship with Dogs by Suzanne Clothier and partly inspired by that I have been really concentrating on the relationship between Knightley and I. When he doesn't do something I want him to do, or he suddenly acts mopey and tired when I know very well two seconds ago he was chasing something madly I pause and try to put myself in his place as a dog, try to get into his thoughts, so that I don't react in a way that may harm our relationship in even a small way. I feel really close to him, and he has been teaching me things about myself. I am proud of our progress together and so far he is still looking like a viable assistance dog prospect, although I am completely aware I have done no more than the beginning of the puppy raising stage. However, what I see so far is great. Now.... if only he would be more interested in taking treats... especially outisde...! We are now doing training sessions in the backyard, instead of outside. As long as I really keep up the rate of reinforcement he does pretty well. It is when we go into the street that his brain virtually evaporates. We'll keep working on it, and I'll try to keep trying to think like a dog!

Changing how I train Knightley

13 weeks 2 days old

Since the first days of training Knightley, he hasn't been particularly switched on by training sessions. I have already talked on here at some length about the difficultly in finding a treat that Knightley could really like and now I look back upon my techniques, in a way I used that difficulty as an excuse for his slight passiveness - and didn't really try to change anything about the way I was actually doing the training sessions.

In a way, I don't blame myself much. Those first couple of weeks with Knightley were very exhausting, and I don't think I could have mustered up the extra energy for the approach I am using now. I had been thinking a lot about Knightley and I, and made a post on the yahoo list for those who are following Sue Ailsby's Training Levels. It helped further challenge my expectations of myself, of Knightley and also after some thought, gave me some ideas for changing our training sessions in order to get him "in the game".

These are the major changes I've put in place:

• I now stop sessions while he is wanting more (before I sometimes continued until he was reluctant)
• I now stand to train him, and keep moving around (before I used to train sitting, as I know many other trainers do)
• I now talk a LOT, and make lots of fuss over right things, especially any breakthroughs. This is to keep him engaged and keep his enthusiasm. Talking is generally considered a no no for clicker training (before I generally trained in semi silence except for effusive praise when he had done something really good)
• I am temporarily using the marker "yes" more often than clicking, as it seems to be more effective. I think this may be because the clickers I have are of the "i-click" type and so are rather quiet. Knightley is completely sound proof and I think they are just a bit wishy washy for him. I have ordered two clickers of the loud type. (Clickers are considered a better marker of desireable behaviour than your voice, because your voice changes, and reflects your mood, and possibly your frustration with your dog! A consistent marker is the cornerstone of this type of training, called operant conditioning)
• I try to keep the behaviours varied, when not learning something new. In the past we might review zen by doing three in a row. Now I will do one zen, then a touch while moving my hand so he has to chase after it which he loves, then a down, then another zen..... I have realised he much prefers the active behaviours, so I mix them all up.
• I have made his main mealtime food more boring in the hope that he will see treats as exactly that - treats!! His meals were (on breeders advice) kibble, soaked well in warm water, with a bit of puppy milk, and a couple of tea spoons of wet dog food. I slowly weaned him off the puppy milk bit by bit (he didn't appreciate that change!), and then slowly reduced the amount of wet dog food I was giving him. Last night was his first kibble only meal, which he ate happily. Previously he had refused kibble point blank. We'll see if it helps.

These changes have already made some big differences. Before the changes, there was very little wagging and doggy grinning during our sessions. Now the tail rarely stops, and that is something really important to me. I think clicker training can give that happy tail wagging 'this is a fun game' feel to a dog, unlike any other training method. My previous dog was trained fairly traditionally (with some luring), and I can tell you, he didn't particularly enjoy being pushed and prodded and jerked into various behaviours. Once he had learnt them, he could enjoy more, but the process can be so much more fun for both partners!

The approach kind of proved itself when I started teaching the beginning of paw targeting. Knightley didn't get it on our first day, but second day, bam bam bam, his rather large paws were hitting the lid I was using again and again and his tail was going happily. In the past new behaviours took longer and were something that didn't make him happy.... they tended to turn him off and make him a little unwilling to continue. So that was exciting. I made some videos of Knightley doing the OL1 (Old Level 1) behaviours the other day, but I need to actually make them into a proper movie before posting them.

We are working hard on LLW and also on keeping under threshold whilst outside. He certainly isn't great at taking treats outside, which is a good indication of being over threshold. Lots more work to do there.

He is definitely growing up, there is more maturity there. Not to say he is sometimes still a real devil... but he is generally less work than he was those first few weeks. We've had him 5 weeks now, which means he just turned 13 weeks old. He is growing so very fast it scares me! It is to the point I am really not a fan of picking him up anymore. They say on a slow growth plan he should be about half his adult weight at 4 months, and that should be about right - maybe a touch under.

Anyway, he is my adorable Knightley, and our bond is becoming very close already. I miss him whenever I leave the house and can't wait to see him again.

More about meeting the puppies, pet insurance and food

Pre pickup 1 week 3 days old

So I have mostly recovered from our trip and the flood of medication the evil place pumped into me the day after we got back (they had to put the cannula into a vein virtually on TOP of my forefinger knuckle....owwwwies lots of nerves there!!). I managed to get out and see the last Harry Potter movie today, so sad in bits!

Anyway, time for more about the pups.

They were such sweet warm bundles, I do hope one of them passes the temperament tests with flying colours (or more than one!). As I mentioned last post, they had only just come out of the whelping box and were pretty unresponsive still, happy to sleep in the sun. One of them - the small one I mentioned - had a go at pawing at a ball a bit but other than that they mostly just slept as I watched them, entranced. The breeder tried to wake them by calling them a couple of times, which did at least work as a very rough hearing test, although I will do another at 7 weeks old. They did respond..... before sleeping again. Awwww, too cute.

One good thing I found out is they come with six weeks pet insurance, which is great. I was worried about getting the new pet insurance to start as soon as we got our bundle at eight weeks. However, six weeks is a great buffer to have, and will cover a lot of the early problems that may come up. It may also let me experience a pet insurer, although hopefully the pup - assuming it is going to happen and one passes well - doesn't get sick of course.