Sheep Aversion

Although Monty has never actually chased sheep, he’s demonstrated on several occasions since we’ve had him that he would like to get up close and personal with the woollybacks.  Enter Janet, a dog trainer, who provides access to a flock of sheep as part of sheep aversion training. Janet, a no-nonsense individual with a warm personality who clearly understands canine psychology and the value of “tough love” was simply superb. After a couple of loud and dramatic interventions by her followed by one from me, Monty wanted to be anywhere but in that sheep field. Let the consolidation training begin!

 

Who's a good boy, then?

We’ve made some progress with Monty. On Friday, we met several doggy people and their beasts by the river and as Monty was having a wonderful time chasing around with them on his extender lead, we took the unplanned and bold step of letting him off.  We were armed with plenty of treats and although nervous, we were pleasantly surprised and relieved when he came back. Since then, he’s been off his lead several times in Rickerby Park and so far, he hasn’t disgraced himself, thank goodness, although we recognise we still have a long way to go with him

Sit!!

We attended our second dog training class last week with Monty and other dogs in attendance. There was a lot of barking and a couple of “teeth–bared lunges” from some (surprisingly, a mute Monty behaved well) but all told, there was very little over-exuberance. Monty was an enthusiastic, good-natured participant and responded well to the tasks he had to undertake but we still have some way to go as he clearly has a number of behaviours to un-learn. An upside, however, was his evident enjoyment of treats as a reward mechanism, which is definitely something we can exploit

Remember Fenton?

We attended our first dog training class last week and were impressed. As we were only covering basics and domestics, the dogs didn’t attend, which was definitely better than trying to listen to information with a bored animal.  Let’s hope our expectations are fulfilled for although Montilicious has settled in well, he’s completely unreliable at coming when called. Remember Fenton? Monty proved this conclusively on Sunday when he made a bid for freedom after someone left the gate open. He completely ignored all my calls and was only captured when a neighbour offered him biscuits.  We have work to do!

Lessons to be learned!

Monty is settling in well but if he was a child, he’d be described as having “behavioural issues”. He’s very affectionate and enthusiastic but totally lacks any sort of focus, being distracted from his immediate “favourite thing” by the next “favourite thing” in the vicinity. We can’t even begin to think about letting him off his lead to run free so I’ve made enquires about formal training to take us back to basics.  I suspect he’s quite intelligent but something of a free spirit so we need to address that to let him be “the dog that he can be”!