Bertie turned 4 on 12th August 2012 and we had a lovely day together.  As it was a weekend, we went to our regular Café for brunch where the owner kept aside a whole sausage as a prezzie for Bert. We then went to my parents’ house, who’d bought him a new Basil Brush squeaky toy which he thought was fabulous and still plays with religiously every time we go! In the afternoon I took him to a local nature reserve for a long walk in the woods which is one of his favourite places, then he had an extra long tummy rub, a Pig’s Ear, and settled down for a much needed nap!
My feelings of being totally overwhelmed last month possibly had something to do with the fact that I was beginning to feel unwell, and in April I had a crisis with my health. I became really quite poorly and lost nearly a stone in weight, was unable to eat, and was confined to bed much of the time (in between hospital visits and various tests and scans). Of course this put training Bertie out of the window and I just had to relax about the whole thing and try not to let it get me down. There were days of tears though and cries of “poor Bertie, he deserves someone well who can do more with him†but then I was gently reminded that well people are at work all day which would have been awful for Bert with his separation anxiety, and at least he had me for company all the time which is what he needs most of all. In fairness, Bert didn’t seem to care less and the anxiety and worry were all in my own mind.
I was ill for most of the summer, and it was during this time that I had one of the scariest moments of my life. There was a cottage for rent a few doors along from me and my friend was interested in having a look around. I couldn’t get in touch with the owner for the keys, but my friend and I thought it would be OK to take a look round the garden and outbuildings and have a peep through the windows to see what the ground floor of the house was like. Bert came along too and we had a nice half hour pottering round and discussing the pros and cons of living there. We’d been looking around the garage when I noticed Bert was tucking into something pink and waxy looking and I just instinctively knew it was something bad and I needed to find out what it was. The cottage owner was at work, so I rang her and asked if she knew what it might be and almost had a heart attack when she admitted it was rat poison and I had to get Bertie to the vets at double quick speed. Rat poison contains Warfarin which acts as a blood thinner and a small dog can bleed to death within 24 hours if it’s not treated early. My friend bundled us into her truck and we hared off to the vet, with me almost beside myself with worry. On arrival, Bert was snatched out of my arms and taken to have his stomach pumped. He’d eaten so much poison they had to do this 4 times before his vomit stopped being pink, then they had to fill him with charcoal to mop up any residual liquid. He then had to go back 4 days later to have the clotting factor in his blood checked. The bill came to £160 (thank goodness I was insured, but it still cost me the £80 excess) and I was beyond relieved that Bert was fine afterwards and has suffered no ill effects. If I hadn’t actually seen him eating the poison and gotten treatment straight away the consequences would have been 100% fatal which doesn’t even bare thinking about – bleeding to death internally from rat poison is apparently a horrific way to die.
The one good thing to happen in the summer was that Bertie suddenly started to use his Poochiebells without prompting by me. One day I was in the Utility room when I heard the sound of tinkling, and when I went to investigate there was Bert standing by the back door waiting to be let out for a wee. Yippppeeee 
. He now uses them regularly and it’s eased my mind a lot to know that he has a way of asking to be let out when he has the urge to pee.
There are days when I really feel I’m getting somewhere with Bertie’s training, and other days where I’m in absolute despair and wonder if he’ll ever get anywhere near the 80% obedience I’m aiming for (pointless aiming for 100% with a ‘Pig’s Fly’ dog!). Today, when I took him out for his walk, his heel work was virtually none existent and he barked his head off at a Labrador walking past on the opposite side of the road, which is something he hasn’t done for months *sigh*. I tried standing between him and the dog when I saw the dog coming, but Bertie just craned his head around my legs, body taught, hyper-alert. I tried getting down on my knees in front of him, and sticking a piece of sausage under his nose to get him to look at me instead, all to no avail. He just went nuts as the dog walked past, straining on his lead and barking aggressively. I can’t keep doing a u-turn every time we see another dog – after 12 months I really should be getting somewhere with training him to look at me on another dog’s approach, but I’m obviously doing something wrong as it’s simply not working. Today, I just want to cry at the enormous task I’ve unwittingly taken on in adopting a dog like Bertie, then hate myself for feeling like this because I do love him to bits. I’m just tired of the relentlessness of it, and the lack of consistent progress. His territorial barking in the house is also grating on my very last nerve. I do wonder if I’ll ever be able to wean him off constant food rewards, because after 12 months none of his behaviours are proofed enough for me to even consider this. I’m fed up of going round smelling like a piece of liver or a chorizo sausage (it doesn’t help that I’m vegetarian and the smell sometimes makes me gag), and Bertie has gained half a kilo in weight.  But if Bertie doesn’t obey for food it’s pointless trying to get him to obey for toys, praise or anything else as these simply don’t motivate him. Today I’m dispirited, and exhausted, and frustrated and could really do with some help.
Hallelujah! I finally seemed to be making some inroads with Bertie’s recall training. I changed his reward treats to very smelly pre-cooked hotdog sausages and pre-cooked Chinese barbeque chicken pieces, in the hope that the smell would attract him and also figured that a change is as good as a rest. It seemed to work, and in February I was getting a recall rate of about 80%. He’s never going to be perfect, especially in a chase environment (he saw the farm cat last week and was deaf to my commands for a good 5 minutes while he chased it halfway up a bramble covered embankment), or when he sees another dog, but if he would keep up the 80% I’d be a happy bunny. He’s also not the fastest recaller in the universe, and sometimes still finishes his sniff or wee before coming to me, but as long as he does come I can live with it. On the occasions when he does a brilliant recall, and comes zooming towards me at 100 miles an hour on first whistle, he gets a jackpot treat of 10 bits of sausage or chicken, along with copious amounts of hugs, chin scratches and “what a good boyyyy, you’re the best doggie in the whole wide world!†fuss.
Another excellent behaviour I started to notice on Bertie’s off-lead walks was that he now regularly ‘checks in’ with me, ie. he’ll run off ahead but at a distance of about 20 feet he’ll turn to look at me to just check where I am. This is a huge step forward from him running off and never looking back. He’s too far away for me to treat him, but I try to always catch this behaviour and he gets a “gooood boyyyyy, well done!†whenever he turns in my direction. Again, I don’t have a 100% success rate, especially when there are exciting distractions like smelling a delicious trail of fresh sheep poop, but it sure beats the 0% I used to get.
I also made some inroads into Bertie’s indoor territorial barking, but have to admit it’s still not going to plan and I’m not sure what to do next. He will now woof a couple of times then shut up and auto-look at me and wait for his treat, or at least stop barking when I tell him “quietâ€. The problem is, as soon as he’s finished eating his treat he starts barking again! I simply cannot sit next to him all day long feeding him treats – I don’t have the time or inclination, and he would end up as fat as a pig! I’m not sure what to try next and need to give the issue some more thought.
I was also still struggling with Bert’s door manners. I could get him to sit while I opened the door but would he stay? Noooo. He still went lunging at whoever was on the doorstep barking his blummin head off, which can be quite scary for people who don’t know him. So I upped the treat to something bigger – a mini Markies roll – got him to sit where he could see the treat in my hand, then asked him to wait while I said “hello†to the visitor and only then give him the treat. He was so busy eating it then he didn’t have chance to woof! This works well, but he still started to bark when the visitor entered the house. So I started to use ‘time out’ and not let him back in the room until the barking stopped. Six months later I’m still having to use the time out system for some visitors and I’m not sure what else, if anything, to try.
In contrast, Bertie’s behaviour when in a public place such as a restaurant or café is now really
good. I keep him on a lead, which I tie to the table leg, and admittedly he’s a bit fussy for the first 10 minutes, either pacing or wanting me to pet him constantly, but after that he sits beautifully and quietly and is no bother whatsoever. He lets adults and children approach him for a fuss and a stroke, and now doesn’t bark when another dog enters the premises (though he does still leap forward to try to get to them, but if I call him back, ask him to sit or use the ‘watch’ command he’ll usually comply – earning, of course, his food reward). I don’t take him walking about amongst other dogs, as he still lunges constantly, but indoors while everyone is seated I can take him anywhere.
It’s now the start of 2012, and I admit to slackening off on Bertie’s training over Christmas as I was tired, the weather was snowy and freezing, and my Mum was convalescing after her operation and needed care from me.
I initially decided to have another good go at recall training, as Bertie’s ability to come when called has almost disappeared. To test how much I was on his radar, I let him off-lead in a secure area, called him to me and he didn’t even look up. So I got in the car, started it up, drove off and parked up around the corner, getting out of the car and sneaking round to spy on him to see what his reaction was. Far from being in a state of absolute panic that I had driven off and left him, he still hadn’t even looked up and was busy sniffing the grass, tail wagging, having a high old time. Holy Mary Mother of God, have I got my work cut out!!!
So, it’s back to basics we go, *sigh*, although I’m now trying a slightly different strategy of having a ‘positive punishment’ for his non-compliance. By ‘positive punishment’ I mean I’m introducing something he doesn’t like – in this case the lead. If he doesn’t come when called, I go over to him and re-attach his lead. I walk him with this on for 2 or 3 minutes, and have another go at recall. If he comes straight over to me, he gets to roam free again with his lead off, if he doesn’t the lead stays on and we try again in another 2 or 3 minutes. This seems to work quite well, and I definitely think he’s getting the message that coming when called means freedom, and not coming means captivity. I’m also still treating him if he comes when called off-lead, so he gets the double re-enforcer of getting a lovely piece of chicken, then being told “good boy, off you go then!†and getting to run back off into the wide blue yonder. However, there are times when he’s too far away for me to be able to re-attach his lead after a missed recall, so I do still get him to wear his remote control anti-bark collar with the beeper on – if he’s very focused on something like sniffing a rabbit hole and becomes ‘deaf’ to my whistle/call, if I beep his collar the sound usually interrupts his concentration and he’ll look up to see what I want. I can then whistle and use my recall hand signal (a finger pointing first at him, then down towards me) and he’ll usually comply. After only 2 or 3 weeks I start to see an improvement.
I’d also realised that I was recalling him to do things he didn’t like, eg. calling him to the car so that we could go home, or to come in from the garden. In an ideal world you wouldn’t call your dog over to do anything he doesn’t like, but unfortunately in reality you absolutely need to. However, I started positively re-enforcing his coming to the car, or in from the garden, when called with treats and literally within days I didn’t even have to call him – the majority of the time as soon as I approached the car he would come bounding over and sit waiting for his chicken. Fabulous!!
He is, however, continuing to wee in the house and I’ve ruled out any source of stress or anxiety. He never does it in front of me, so he obviously knows this isn’t a ‘safe’ behaviour to do with me present, but as I have never punished him for marking/weeing indoors in the past I think he now thinks it’s a ‘safe’ thing to do just so long as he doesn’t get caught in the act. I needed to tackle this, so twice set him up to piddle and managed to catch him seconds afterwards, resulting in a very stern “no! naughty!†and a marching of him by his collar outside, with him cowering and looking very sheepish.  Thankfully, in just a few days, this seemed to teach him that weeing indoors, whether I’m there or not, is not the done thing and the weeing stopped as abruptly as it had started.
The whole situation did make me think about his cue to “go pee†though, and I realise that he didn’t seem to have one. I have friends who use Poochie Bells (a ribbon with bells attached that you hang on the doorknob) which the dog rings (by either hitting with a paw or his nose) if he needs to go outside to wee, so I ordered some.  I followed the very simple instructions that came with the bells and within a week Bert was ringing them to go outside first thing in a morning and again last thing at night, though only when I was stood right next to him and asking “do you want to go out?â€. He wasn’t using them any other time, but I hoped if I persevered this would change.
My Mum thankfully came out of hospital 10 days before Christmas and the tumour turned out to be benign and nothing to worry about, so mine and Bertie’s lives started to return to normal and we began to re-establish our old routines, which is why this next problem was such a disappointment to me:  Bertie started weeing in the house again. Not marking, actual weeing. I could have totally understood it if it had happened 2 months previously when my Mum was really ill, our routine was out the window and Bertie was being left all day with other people, but for it to start when everything was virtually back to normal was puzzling. I had no idea why it was happening, so just treated it as I did the peeing when I first got him, eg. ignoring the accidents, cleaning up with an enzyme spray, letting him out regularly into the garden to urinate, and shutting all the room doors and keeping him with me at all times (as he still never pees when I’m there). The last few months had been really stressful for me, and I have to be honest and say this was the last thing I need.  I’m also distressed for Bertie that his behaviour regressed in this way, as I assumed it was a sign that something was wrong. I could only hope that Bertie was  just a bit stressed due to recent events and it would settle again in a week or two.
My Mum had been ill for some months, and we discover she has a tumour on her lung. It was a devastating time, as terminal cancer is suspected, and she needed an operation to remove the part of her lung which contained the mass. All in all, she was in hospital for 3 weeks, with the first week involving a daily 160 mile round trip to a specialist unit, and the next 2 weeks a daily 60 mile round trip to our local hospital, to visit her. Thankfully I have some fabulous neighbours, both pensioners who are at home all day, and have previously owned a little West Highland Terrier who they adored, and they offered to look after Bertie for me during the day while I was at the hospital. It’s an enormous relief, as I couldn’t have left him alone due to his separation anxiety, and obviously couldn’t take him to the hospital with me, though I admit I was nervous as to how Bertie would settle – we visit my neighbour’s house every week for a cuppa and a chat, but he’d never been left on his own there before and now it’s to be all day every day for weeks on end.
I needn’t have worried: my neighbours spoiled him rotten, he loves them to bits (he gravitates towards older people, I’m assuming because his first owners were pensioners), and they have a lovely quiet house which suits Bert really well.  I took his mat and his favourite toy, and also left him a stuffed Kong for his lunch as a treat, and when I came home each evening at 6pm he’d be fast asleep in front of the fire, totally relaxed and not in any rush to come home! I was so relieved, and so grateful to my super duper neighbours, I can’t even express it.
According to Bertie’s health card which I was given when I adopted him, his yearly vaccination boosters were due in October so I made an appointment for a jab. He’s so well behaved at the vets I’m incredibly proud of him, and just stands there quietly while he’s injected, poked and prodded. My only concern was that Bertie still had dandruff, despite good food without obvious allergens like gluten, soya or additives, and despite me giving him a daily evening primrose capsule. The vet didn’t seem to think Bertie was itchy or that the dandruff was a sign of anything seriously wrong with his skin, so gave me some Coatex liquid to squirt on his food every day which contains a high concentration of essential fatty acids, particularly GLA found in borage oil. This worked really well and within a month his dandruff had disappeared. Thinking the problem was resolved I stopped using it but within weeks the dandruff was back, so he’s now on it indefinitely and his skin and coat are great.
It was also time for Bertie’s 7 weekly visit to the groomers for a bath and a clip, but he hated going and I felt sick to my stomach as I literally had to drag him over the doorstep. This had been happening for some time and I instinctively knew that something wasn’t right, though I had no idea what the problem was. The grooming usually took about 4 hours, but this particular day I’d finished my shopping in town and turned up half an hour early to collect him. As I approach the main door I could hear yelping and the groomer shouting “of for God’s sake Bertie stand still!â€, followed by yet more yelping. A few minutes later I heard a noise which sounded suspiciously like a slap, though of course I can’t prove this and might be mistaken. Bert was then brought out with blood dripping down his ear and the groomer matter of factly said she’d “nipped him with the scissors while she was trimming his ear hairâ€. I know accidents happen, but I also know that Bertie is good at being handled and, along with his reluctance to go to the Groomer, the yelping, shouting and possible smacking, knew that I’d never take Bertie there again.
This, of course, left me with yet another job – grooming him myself. I’d bathed, dried and brushed him before but the thought of actually clipping him was terrifying and I hadn’t the faintest idea how to even start. The internet came to my rescue yet again, and I watched a dozen You Tube clips on how to clip a Schnauzer. I then had to buy a clipper and, after looking at dozens most of which were for professionals and out of my league price wise, I settled on a Wahl which came with an instructional DVD. I also ended up needing a good pair of straight scissors, a pair of curved scissors, a pair of Wahl thinning scissors and a small battery operated trimmer for his face (thank God for Amazon.co.uk!!).
As Bert’s training wasn’t progressing as quickly as I’d hoped, I wanted to find out a bit more about what made him tick so ordered some books aimed at dog behaviour rather than simply training. I found one of the best to be ‘The Culture Clash’ by Jean Donaldson which re-enforced my instincts that ‘pack’ and ‘dominance’ theories for dogs are outdated at best and abusive at worst, but which also contained a useful training programme consisting mainly of shaping (unfortunately for me she uses clickers, so I had to adapt this for Bertie using a clicking sound with my tongue, kind’ve what you’d do to gee a horse along). With renewed enthusiasm I decided to tackle Bertie’s pulling when out on walks, using positive re-enforcement in the form of treats when he “heelsâ€, plus negative punishment in the form of stopping dead when he pulls and not moving until the lead is slack. It was a pain in the rear end, especially when it was raining, cold and I was tired, but I had to keep it up if I wanted Bertie to walk nicely.   Several months later and I can, some of the time, get Bert to walk beautifully to heel next to my mobility scooter and only sniff when I tell him to, but the first 15 minutes of any walk is still hard work as he’s just so excited and wants to pee up, and sniff, everything in sight! Going past another dog is also still a problem – better than it was, at least he no longer barks his head off, but he does still lunge and it’s a behaviour I’ll need to re-think and work on again in the future.
I was now utterly and completely in love with my dog and I think that, at last, he was starting to relax
and trust that I adored him and only had his best interests at heart. Had I ever kissed him on the muzzle or let him sleep under the duvet? Hell yes!, and he loved for me to roll him over on to his back and kiss his tummy all over “mwah mwah mwahâ€!!
I started to notice little changes in his behaviour, for example when we were both stood at the top of the stairs he would now always wait for me to go down first rather than barge past me (unless of course the doorbell was ringing, in which case he still tore down the staircase like his tail was on fire!). Also, in situations where he felt unsure or anxious he now came over to me and asked to be picked up which showed that he trusted me to remove him from the threat. I’ve had men (never women) who tell me to stop picking the dog up as he’s a dog not a human, but I’ve never taught him to do this and never encouraged it – it’s just something he wants to do naturally and I’m happy to oblige.
We had a nice, calm daily routine which for Bertie consisted of:
- 7am: wake and let out for a wee
- breakfast followed by a tummy rub and a sleep
- 9am: morning walk for 30 minutes (both on and off lead)
- Lunchtime: either a ride out in the car to my parent’s house or a game indoors, plus a Dentastix
- 2-3pm: afternoon walk for 15-20 minutes (usually a run off lead using varied routes – I’m lucky to live in a remote area with lots of public walkways through woods and fields)
- 5pm dinner, followed by grooming
- 6pm onwards, snoozing & cuddling
- 10.30pm let outside for a wee, then put to bed in his basket downstairs to sleep
- Weekends, an extra excursion to the café for brunch and, weather permitting, a longer afternoon walk
I was much more in tune with Bertie’s behaviour patterns and realised he’s a very people orientated dog that needs a lot of physical attention. If you stop stroking him he’ll use his muzzle to lift your hand and place it back on his head! Trainers from the ‘pack leader’ school of thought would say this is a dominating behaviour which must be stopped, which to me is utter tosh. He just likes to be petted and doesn’t want it to stop, and who can blame him. When my arm gets tired I just say “right, that’s enough†and he settles down to sleep.
I noticed early on that Bertie constantly lip licks and often yawns when he’s being petted. I looked this up online and was mortified to read, even from authors I admire like Turid Rugaas, that this is a sign of the dog being uncomfortable in a situation and he’s supposedly sending out ‘calming signals’ in appeasement. I watched this behaviour in Bertie and simply can’t agree. The minute I start rubbing Bert’s tummy, which he absolutely adores, he starts lip licking and yawning – sometimes I only have to smile at him, or tell him “hello lovely boy†and he’s positively drooling and lip licking like mad. For Bert this just signals that he’s happy, relaxed and content and nothing more sinister than that. This demonstrates that each dog is an individual, and certain behaviours in one dog can mean the exact opposite in another. Bert only lip licks and yawns when he’s relaxed and has different behaviours, like head turning, to show when he’s anxious and wants you to back off.
He’s also a dog who makes direct eye contact, which I’ve read is unusual. He’ll sit for ages just staring at you and will even let me sing to him while gazing into his eyes! I have no idea what the sitting and staring means to him, as I haven’t worked it out yet, but he’s seems happy while he’s doing it and that’s the main thing. I’ve now learned to use it to my advantage as much as possible, and sometimes I can just look at him a certain way and he now knows what I want him to do, ie. don’t even think about stealing that cake on the coffee table! He’ll also look directly at me if he hears a strange noise, just to check that I’ve heard it too, and I can reassure him it’s nothing to worry about.
I was still taking him to play ball in the field opposite and it was around this time that this play behaviour broke down. He’d still sit eagerly anticipating the ball being thrown, go chasing after it like the speed of light, but instead of then bringing it back to me he’d find it, leave it where it was and start tearing huge lumps of grass away around the ball with his teeth. I have no idea where this came from or why it happened, but no matter what treat I had or how much I called him he was no longer interested in returning the ball to me. He’s never brought a ball back to me since, and seems to love the grass tearing game – and if he’s happy, I guess I’m happy and at least his jaws are getting a workout.
Speaking of grass, another of Bertie’s habits was eating the stuff. He loves new grass and eats it like caviar. I read online that dogs eat grass because they have upset stomachs and it makes them vomit which makes them feel better, but not in Bertie’s case. He simply loves the taste and eats so much at times I wonder if he’s actually a sheep in a dog’s body! However, I did worry that there could be nasty little critters in the grass, like slugs or snail eggs, which could potentially give him an upset tummy or lungworm, so I have a strict worming schedule which includes Drontal+ to treat intestinal worms, alternated with Advocate which treats lungworm – it would make my life so much easier if someone would come up with a tablet that did both!
Also around this time Bertie got his first tick. We’d been walking in a forest, which is prime tick habitat, and when I was stroking Bert later that night I felt a little soft lump on his skin. I had a look and it was a dark purple colour, the size of my pinky nail, and I could wiggle it about. I thought initially it was some kind of skin tag, and then it dawned on me that it was most likely a tick. Eugh! I didn’t, at the time, have any proper tick removers so gently used my eyebrow tweezers to twist off the tick in an anti-clockwise direction – it’s important to not just pull it or you separate the head from the body and the head can stay under the skin and get infected. I also kept an eye out during the next week for Bertie being unwell in any way, which could mean possible infection with Lyme Disease, but fortunately he was fine and I now have a proper tick removal tool and of course a regular flee & tick treatment schedule.
My dog walker had just gotten a German Shepherd puppy who was now 11 weeks old. She asked if she could bring him along to walk with Bertie and, as Bert had little contact with other dogs, I thought this would be a great idea and might help with his over-excitement when seeing strange dogs outside. The first meeting went well and both dogs toddled off together, although after the first hundred yards the novelty had worn off and Bertie ignored the puppy altogether and carried on with his usual sniffing routine.
Around this time I also started on some remodelling work in the house (unfortunate timing but sadly necessary) and was anxious how this would impact on Bertie’s carefully won over behaviour. I could immediately tell he wasn’t happy, so gave him extra attention and some quite space up in the bedroom so that he could escape the comings and goings of all the tradesmen. But his behaviour inevitably regressed and he scent marked every new item brought into the house, including plasterboard, wood and every tin of paint!
I gave him some le-way, but his peeing increased and started to get out of hand again. I put it down to the work being done inside the house, until the day my dog walker came with her puppy and the second I opened the door Bertie started growling at him! Only then did I realise that the main problem wasn’t the remodelling but the new puppy who Bertie obviously didn’t like at all. I regretfully had to ask the dog walker not to bring him again, and within a week Bertie’s weeing stopped completely. It taught me to look past the obvious when presented with a behavioural problem in the future.
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