They lead, we follow

Nude Solid Manufacturing Co.

Choose your shade of rope lead by Benji + Moon

Another work of ombre art by Found my Animal

Rope Leash with tassel detail from Chapman at Sea

Can you see where I'm going with this...? If your going to get you pal a new collar, you might as well splash out on a new lead too. These have got to be my very favorites at the moment - but again, the only one available locally (and by local I mean in South Africa) is the Benji and Moon Leash.

I know which one is our favorite, what's yours?

xxx

Winter Warmers

Although you might revel in the idea of sitting in front of the fire while watching whole seasons of your favorite series this winter, this might not be your dog’s idea of fun (unless you have one of those very relaxed and sleepy dogs like Salvador’s friend, Jameson)

I’ve decided to round up some fun things to do with your dog during the winter months and here they are!

Rainy day walks

Now, I know while your sitting all comfy-cozy, in front of the fire, every fiber of your being is kicking against this, but taking your dog for a walk in the rain might just be the best thing that happened in his or her day! It’s really not that bad. Pull on that coat and open up that umbrella – no doubt you’ll be the only one under it. Salvador loves nothing more than getting wet and mucky!

Treasure Hunt

Instead of feeding Salvador the usual way, I sometimes hide his food all around the house. He loves this game so much, because sniffing around is his favorite past-time (all dogs love it!).

Obstacle course

Gather all your brooms, mops, chairs, step ladders and build an obstacle course. You can guide your dog around it with treats and lots of encouraging words.

Stair climber

Are you lucky enough to have a set of stairs in your house? Use these to up the normal fetch game by dropping the ball down them. Exercise for the day done!

Teacher-teacher

Find yourself wishing your dog was more responsive to those basic commands (sit, heel, stay etc.)? Why not use this time and the confines of your home to practice these?

Play date

If you have children this is probably your worst nightmare – as if organizing your human child’s social life is not enough…but seriously though, if you have a friend with a dog that lives nearby and your dogs get along, you could use this time to catch-up and let your dogs have a play date.

These are but a few fun ideas to keep you and your dog busy this rainy season. Have fun with it!

Licks & kisses!

xxx   

HAPPY 2015!!!

Happy New Year all!! Here's to a fantastic year filled with adventures, dog walks and so forth.

All of the season's greetings aside, this year started off on a bit of a wobbly leg for us. We got home on the 1st of the new year, to a freshly ransacked house...This was obviously very upsetting to both us and Salvador, as I'm sure he felt this would never have happened, was he here to protect his property. I'm sure the smell of intruders still linger in his always busy nostrils and as a result he is now even more on guard than before. Literally NOTHING can go past our house, front or back, without him alerting us. It's not great being slightly more paranoid, as one tends to be after these incidents, and suddenly waking up to a manically barking dog at 2am...but then I stick to my theory that I don't think anyone would have broken into the property if Salvador was around, because he would have been on high alert the moment someone entered the garden. Yet another reason to get a dog!!

As far as New Years resolutions go - I'm not sure if we have that many. I have however decided that we will be taking Salvador along to restaurants more often. Now not all of us are lucky enough to do this, bit living in Cape Town, in a mostly pet friendly suburb with loads of on street dinning delights, this is definitely something we are going to start doing.
In fact, we took Salvador and his friend Jameson to a lovely, laid back place called The Stall in Franschhoek today and I was pleasantly surprised at his good behavior. This being said, he was exhausted when we got home, as I think trying to behave all through lunch, at a foreign place with so many new smells, just took its toll on him mentally. He handled himself well though.
There seems to be many places around Cape Town that is relatively dog friendly - I mean it's probably always going to be hard to find a place where they literally beg you to bring your dog along(I'm not sure if one can be sure of the cuisine at such an establishment...), but there are definitely some that would sooner ask you if you would like a water bowl for your panting pooch, than chase you off hungry. We will be checking out some places this year and with Salvador's help I'll inform you of the good ones!

Another thing we are working on this year is going for a well calculated, peaceful jog - now as you can see, I've underlined a bit there as this is a big block in the road for us. Our current jogs starts off with a bang - literally a BANG, as in the gun shot at the beginning of a sprint race, because we are bounding off at break-neck speeds! Somewhere midst all the pulling and jerking we then come to an abrupt halt in order to tend to some toilet business...it is towards the last 2 minutes of this mad sprint that we reach a stage of total bliss as Salvador gets a bit more tired, but before you know it we hit the front step and the chaos is over. As any of you who are keen runners can gather, this is no way to exercise, well not for me(I'm sure Salvador tires himself out quite a bit), so we will be tending to this issue in the coming months.

To end off this New Years post, I am glad to inform you that we will be able to stay on at our current address for at least another year! This comes as a great relief after we were told that the house we are renting is on the market, in which case there was a big chance that it would sell and we would be stuck in the horrible tumult of finding another pet friendly residence - one of the hardest things to do in this town! But we are definitely staying and couldn't be happier!!

HERE'S TO A GREAT 2015 !!!    

xxx

Training Tip #2 - Always carry a bag of treats with you, single word commands & Some random observations on what we've been doing

Hi all!

Wow! What a great weekend in Cape Town it has been! Spring has sprung and everyone is outdoors having fun (with or without furry friends). If the change of season has made me realize one thing, it has to be that I want to spend this summer out and about - and possibly have Salvador in a semi trained, calm state so as the both of us can enjoy it.

This week we've stuck to our 'walking on the lead' trick and I even had some family and friends remark on the improvement he's made! We have by no means perfected it yet, but I feel confident that it's the way to go and that soon our gagging, disastrous walks will be a thing of the past!

Jameson stayed with us this week - as you might or might not know, he is one of Salvador's ultimate bestie's. He is a huge, cuddly and sweet nurtured 9 year old Golden Retriever that belongs to my boyfriends mother.

Salvador and Jameson

Jameson has assisted me so helpfully in keeping Salvador calm on walks - when you have a dominant dog, it helps a lot to have a calm old timer walking in front of you. I found that previously Salvador would always want to be the leader and by keeping him next to Jameson or even slightly behind, he calms down a bit.
Salvador also responds differently to other dogs in the park when he is with Jameson, almost as if he mimics his friend's behavior - which is great because Jameson is everyone's friend!

What I'm most excited to tell you about is this weekends adventures! On Saturday morning we took Salvador to this great park just up the road from us called Keurboom Park.

Image of Keurboom Park in Rondebosch from Foursquare

It is one of the two parks in Cape Town where dogs can run free - the other one being DeWaal Park in the City Bowl. It boasts some pretty cool features such as a skate park, kids play area, walking/running loop, a channel that runs through it and it's adjacent to a soccer and rugby field so all in all, it is a very large park with ample exercise space for you and your dog. 

This Saturday I decided to let Salvador off the lead as I have noticed that his behavior towards other dogs are much calmer off it than on it...it's strange, but this is apparently a thing - I'm not saying that you throw caution to the wind and let a very aggressive dog loose in the park, but if you have a manageable dog that possibly picks up on your nervous tension, perhaps you should give it a go.
Salvador happily met all the dogs that came on our path and we then proceeded to do some training with him on the rugby field - commands like 'COME' and 'DROP'(crucial for playing fetch). We are trying our best to stick to single words, for instance, when we call him, we say 'come' and not 'come Salvador'. All our commands are just single words - this makes it so much easier for him to learn!
He was so good on this walk that this morning we decided to go for a walk along the Promenade - on the lead most of the time so we just reinforced Tip #1 and I must say, we were pretty happy with the result, until, on the way back he promptly found the nearest puddle of muddy water and rolled in it...I guess you can't have it all in one day...

Happy training!

Licks and Kisses
xxx

Any leads?!

Dear all,

I am in some urgent need of advice! As you all know, we moved to the city a while ago and all is going well except for one little problem...Salvador is not at all used to walking on a lead. On the farm he rarely went on a lead since he could run free without me worrying about him running into the street. This has all changed though. Suburban life definitely calls for leads and he is finding it a bit troubling. We've now been living in the city for about 4 months and although his lead walking has improved slightly, it is still a struggle, so I've taken it upon myself to look into some alternative training devices and came up with a multitude of interesting options - the only problem I have now is, Which one do I choose?!

My first find was the Halti, otherwise known as the Gentle Leader. In a nutshell, it was designed by a gentleman, who himself is the owner of a rather large, rather strong dog, and having had some troubles with his back and being afraid that struggling with his massive hound would put his back out, he devised this 'head collar' to see to the problem.
On a recent walk I met an elderly lady with her large Red Setter that confirmed this product actually works and that she too was afraid of hurting herself, as her dog used to be rather excitable and strong. Said dog is now a very calm, well behaved senior that seems to have come off well from his training with the Halti.
BUT, as with all things in life it seems, there are some who think that this collar is ineffective...I'm no expert so I'm not at all sure why, but it sent me forth on my search for some more training contraptions.

Next I stumbled on a slightly similar contraption called the Infinity Lead by Bold Lead Designs. It is similar to the Halti in that the dog is still able to pant, drink etc, yet it provides the handler with more control over the dog's head - as with horse halters, by being in control of the animal's head it is easier to control the rest of the animal's body and the direction you want it to go in. This lead focuses on bringing the dog's head up as soon as it starts pulling so that it's more aware of the owner. What made me like this one was the fabric it's made off - it just seems a bit softer and more flexible than the Halti.

So as you can see I'm in a bit of a bind over my options. Have you used any of the following products, do you have any advice! Please share!!

Licks and Kisses!

xx

Starting from scratch (How I trained Salvador to be the semi-well behaved dog that he is today)

Sometimes one revels so much in the joys of having a new puppy that training and behavior takes a back seat - this is only natural as few people can resist a clumsy little fluff ball a.k.a. puppy. I was one of you when I first laid eyes on Salvador!

It is very tricky focusing on the task at hand i.e raising a well behaved dog, when confronted with this face...

But a little crash course on the temperament and behavioral traits of the breed brought me back to earth (this wake up call came in the shape of one of those Breed books you can get in the pet/animal section of most bookshops).

Salvador is now 18 months old and I recon he is a pretty well behaved young man, save for the occasional arrogance towards dogs twice his size and/weight at the weekly market (we are in the process of remedying this behavior with the help of Cesar Millan as inspiration - you may choose your own mentor). I compiled a little list of tips that I picked up from rearing Salvador for any of you new moms and dads.

Potty training

It is really not as difficult as it has been made out to be. Salvador almost always needed the loo after a sleep and after a meal so I took him to the same grassy spot every time. Do this every time, without fail and you've won 2/3rds of the battle. Sometimes mistakes happen and then I would just clean the area very thoroughly - scattering some bicarb on the spot after helps to remove the smell, as the smell is the thing that will most likely lure another attempt.

Bonding

I got Salvador a few days before I had to go back to work after Christmas holidays, but I was lucky enough to be able to take him to work with me. I think this did wonders for our relationship and he got to bond with other dogs, children and the car from the very beginning. We were literally never apart for the first two months of me bringing him home. Unfortunately I had to go overseas for work when he was about 3months old, but my neighbors, and owners of his very best friend, Henry looked after him so this was not a train smash.

Exercise

Weekend forest walks

Salvador is an extremely active dog and we are fortunate enough to be living on a farm (not for much longer though...) so we go on at least one walk a day. I try to go once in the morning and once after work and on weekends we work in a proper 30mins to an hour of walking. I'm also teaching him fetch at the moment. This is a great game for all dogs, but especially Spaniels since they are retrievers and therefor you are appealing to their breed characteristics. This game is also great for tiring them out. Salvador also LOVES water and I take him swimming in the nearby dam or in the neighbor's pool as often as possible. This is an amazing tiring out tactic and great for the joints! I will have to get more creative with excising once we move to the city...

Chew toys

If you would like to keep your couches and shoes intact, your best friend is the chew toy! When ever I go to the shops I take a little detour into the pet shop to stock up on hide, hooves etc. I find that Salvador would much rather chew one of those stinky little numbers than my shoes and trust me, this really works as Salvador has NEVER chewed a shoe in his life!

Couches are for hiding in and NOT for chewing!

The lead

I had a collar around his neck from a very early age so he could get used to the idea and whenever we went anywhere he had a lead on so he learnt very quickly. Be patient and gentle with this and if possible use a friend's experienced dog to lead the way.

Have fun with your new puppy and remember to stick by your rules - always!