Of smart puppies and holidays

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 13 September 2007 12:24:14

He's a learner this puppy of ours. Blue Heelers are known for being tough AND intelligent, a good mix which can also be a complete nightmare as they are very independent thinkers, and not necessarily interested in YOUR opinion. But JD is learning quickly. We've taken to tying him to his kennel at night, as I might have mentioned previously, and he's quickly learned that we don't come out for one or two barks, but continued barking brings people investigating - and if it's just barking because he can then he gets a smack. All I had to do last night was lean out the door, ascertain that he was barking at, basically, the air, and yell “JD be quiet” and we had dead silence for the rest of the night. Lovely!

We've been quite relaxed, really, that most things will be trained out or we would come up with a solution - we have been very worried about the barking in the car issue though. Couldn't see a way to make him stop short of massive beatings which, as I'm sure you agree, we're not really interested in doing! Not his fault he's a car barker, he was obviously (by the way he moves in a car) tied to the back of a ute and left to run about and yell his head off while the car was moving, which the person in the cab not at all worried.

Anyway, we tried the bark muzzle, which lasted about 5 minutes before he hooked his dew claws through it and tore it to shreds. The sonic anti-bark collar seemed to have no effect whatsoever. We were thinking of trying a citronella spray anti bark collar but we seem to have had a breakthrough. Mr Tasmania has been sitting with him at his feet in the front seat, and doing the ‘no', smack nose when barking, and give rewards when quiet routine, and it's been working. On Monday he took him into town, dog buckled into passenger seat, and with pocket full of treats, and had only 3 or 4 barks. Today he took him in and just phoned to tell me there was not one single bark the whole way in ... and of course he's gained treats and lots of pats ... puppy quiet happily sitting there looking out the window - albeit with oceans of drool on the floor - gross, but way better than the sprayed saliva we also had with the barking. So we seem to be reaching victory on this one!

The aim of it all, of course, is being able to take the dog when we drive back to NSW at Christmastime ... he won't like the trip on the boat, I'm sure, but we can tranquilise him for that. We just couldn't see a way to take him if he was going to bark for 7 hours - and piercing barks too. But now ... looking good ... we're going to have to take him on some extended drives, see how he copes, and learn the ‘desperate for a pee signals', but we can manage that. Hooray!

Oh yes, and we're going on hols from tomorrow until 23 Sept! Yay! Mr Tasmania's parents are coming down to stay and look after JD. Will be great, need a hol, looking forward to seeing the family, friends, and mum/dad's extensions!