Scottish Monday

Of course my two have to feature in some of my photographs. A fantastic day up in the carpark in the sky overlooking Paisley and Glasgow 

October sunshine

The weather the past few days has been almost better than our summer! I have taken advantage of that with the dogs - here are a few snaps of the fuzzies in the sunshine

Lifes a Beach

 I know you all havent seen the dogs in a wee while. We have actually had some days that are almost like summer here in rainy Scotland so I have had my two to the beach a few times.
Here is Erskine Beach

and Mia met some GIANT dogs. This Great Dane was so polite and friendly after Mia being a little unsure she even had a little play with her

 Then she met these lovely big dogs without so much as a curled lip

What a good girl, and nice to meet such lovely friendly dogs

 Mia was even confident enough to bum sniff with this little terrier

Not all days are good days with dogs but offlead at the beach you really wouldnt know she isnt a normal balanced friendly dog

 Of course once all the other dogs were gone Mia just had to have a game of 'beat Ben up'

which he does love - even tho he pretends otherwise

 And swimming, Mia LOVES to swim

and even a little posing

Just so long as I have chicken then the guys will look pretty for the camera

(honestly I am training stays!)

Mia

I have a little niggly feeling that Mia has been in the bin again

No trail of destruction - just a little fashion statement

Hopefully it is not a request!

All your pillows they will be mine!!

The little lady likes her comfort but I think she is taking things a little far nesting all the cushions together :)

Mias new trick

Just started a new trick for the dogs

Mia is really getting the hang of it - wrapping her paws around the pole. She can do left paw, right paw or even both paws

I haven't got any of it on verbal command yet but it is very cute

Bless Ben!!

He hasn't quite got it yet!

It took quite a while of getting him used to the pole for me to even get him to be anywhere close to the pole - which is interesting because if we are weaving or circling the pole Ben gets overexcited and headbuts the thing

So far he has got the idea that I want something to do with his paws, but it just makes no sense to him (check the face out)

I know I know - dogs should not play with sticks

But I didn't have the heart to tell Mia

I had a whole sackful of toys with me, even a ball with REAL rabbit skin stitched onto the end like a tail

But no the lady doesn't like any of them

and she was so happy with her stick!

No you be the leader

All too often nowadays people are obsessed with becoming the 'pack leader'
Always suppressing our dogs and seeing a challenge to their status in every little thing the dog does.
This is all unfortunately because of flawed research done years ago in wolf packs.
The researchers thought they saw packs of wolves with an alpha pair who were the bosses leading with paws of iron





and the rest of the pack was made up of lower ranking wolves all trying to climb the social ladder to be the alpha dogs.
The alpha wolves were the only ones to mate.
People assumed this meant that only the strongest in a pack ever got to mate and submissive animals never got the chance to pass on their genes.

More recently researchers have realised that view was wrong.
A pack is not a group of individuals fighting to get to the top


A pack is a family. The alpha pair are the parents.
Wolves do not become sexually active till they are at least 2 so the other wolves in the pack are older cubs of the alpha pair.
There is no point in the younger animals striving to reach the top - that would mean them breeding with their parents.
When wolves become mature they go off and find their own mate and create their own pack - even the submissive ones.




So rather than the pack leader we should think of ourselves more as a 'parent' role.
Yes dogs need rules, guidelines and training.
But letting your dog on the sofa will not mean he will chase to postman.
Making them wait to eat after you will not make her recall when called

If you have a training problem address the actual problem rather than making up rules that make no sense for the dog



So for today's walk I let Mia be the leader. She found us a wee path to walk along - it seemed like a wee deer path - but I gave it a go.
Then it opened into the most lovely park and then a forest walk

and even me letting her 'lead' she still stayed when I asked for a photoshoot and she recalled when I called.

So I guess all this power hasn't gone to her head and she isn't going to steal my credit card just yet

Happy birthday Ben, 3 today

Today is my little boys birthday, 3 today
Or 21 if you go by the 7 dog years to one of ours.

So thats it - he is a grown up now!



Today was the Glennifer agility show.
After stupidly doing a really long nearly 4 hour walk yesterday both Ben and myself were a little stiff

He did really well tho, 3 runs, 3 clear rounds.

Unfortunately we didnt get any places as there were some super fast dogs there today but I am really happy with him.

Mia was a little angel too, offlead running and then onlead a collie charged her all snarling and reactive and she wagged her tail and went into a play bow!! WTG girl!

Then after a quick visit to the pet shop for birthday toys we headed off to the rhubarb fields that friends have been telling us about.

The dogs had a great fun run about and have been sleeping ever since

I think he had a good day