Got our little rescue Doggie........all advice welcomed!! **Updated with pictures**

LoopyLinz

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

lol - my old terrier used to do that look so well - when she used to stay at my dads he used to swear he could tell she was thinking 'you silly old b*gger' on a frequent basis!

He sounds brill - in general, a good rule of thumb is reward good behavour, and work on the Nothing in Life is Free Principle (NILIF) - so work on teaching hom to do something to get something - eg. 'sit' for a treat at first, then get him to sit before you put his lead on, or sit before you ghead out for a walk, or go to his bed whilst you put his dinner down, and wait... it takes time, but it is a good way to work with dogs in general.

As for food - dry food is complete and is fine, you can add to it if you like, but dogs dont get bored in the same way as we do!

As for choosing a dry food - I feed Wagg which is cheap as cheap, but no colours etc and suits my dog well (and my last little terrier lived to about 15-16 on it, so it seemed to suit her well!) and add in table scraps sometimes (no onions, grapes, raisins etc as they are toxic to dogs, but most veggies, spuds, rice, eggs, meat and fish scraps are fine) and I add a sardine for healthy fur, skin and joints occasionally!

You can pay anything from a tenner for a 15kg bag of wagg, right up to £50 ish plus for some dry foods...orijen is supposed to be good, as it is almost all meat, but. like all foods I am sure it will suit some dogs better than others. I am sure most foods will do the job fine for most dogs, but I would advise against Bakers as it has artificial colours, and I dont feel Iams or Eukanuba because of their alleged involvement with cruel animal testing.

Go with whatever suits your dog and your pocket - so long as your dog is healthy on it, has decent poos, and plenty of energy I think the food is fine for them! My gran had a Jack Russell who lived to 18 on a diet of almost exclusively leftovers, sandwiches, digestive biscuits and cooked liver - I would not advise it, but I think it indicates that we can worry too much about getting the 'best' food for our dogs! :-)

I choose to feed an economical food supplemented with leftovers and oily fish, as it suits my dog and my budget, and leaves me with cash for insurance etc.. please do consider what you can afford longterm and look at getting insurance if it would be a problem if your dog accrued a sudden high vet bill!

FC I cannot thank you enough for all your advise. You really have helped no end with all those questions I had.

We are slowly geteting there with the training thing. To begin with Muttley would go crazy with excitment when we were trying to get his lead on, he now has a little bounce around but is beginning to realise he wont actually get out until he sits down nice and lets us sort him out.

With regards to the food I think I will try to bring him down to dry food with a few table scraps and see how we go.

Going to really try hard with the NILF principle and hopefully I will be able to report back with lots of great achievments. Again thank you so much for all your great advice

xox

meerkat2007

Oh, he's absolutely gorgeous!!!! I'm about 19 years off retiring, but the plan, when I retire, is to take myself off for a little holiday, and then when I get back, go to a rescue and see who wants to adopt me. And I'll be looking for a little doggie just like him!

Oh, you're so lucky!

Errata

What an absolute charmer - lucky you.
I've desparately been trying to teach my lad recall, but he's been having none of it. I've always used the command 'here' with my dogs but it wasn't working with him.
By a sheer fluke, I yelled 'this way' at him in the garden the other day and he came to me immediately ! Better yet, he's consistently coming to me for 'this way'.

The only reason I'm mentioning this, is that perhaps Muttley has been used to people shouting 'here' at him and nothing very nice has happened to him when he did ? He might respond to a new word + bribery ?

consultant31

He's just gorgeous.........and I'm sure the love you have for him is mutual:)

I would stick with dry food if he'll take it. Wet food goes off quicker in the summertime especially, and it does tend to draw flies, whereas the dry doesn't seem to interest bugs at all.

teachergirl

He's beautiful! Just a couple of quick things that might help. When we got our rescues from the RSPCA we were told that sometimes the dogs would have accidents not just from the stress but also because at the rescue centre they only have the "kennel " to go in but they should revert in time so it could be that as well. Our rescue dogs had never had much interaction either but now after three years one of them plays with any soft toy she can but the other still ignores them. My children spent several hours throwing balls for them and then retrieving them,themselves!;)
The pet food advice you have already had is all correct. I felt like you that it seemed a bit boring but my dogs soon got used to it and it even helped clear up the ezcema that one of them had. I do admit that I give them fresh chicken every now and then.
Finally with the recall it takes a little while . One of mine refuses to come when you call her name, like she cannot hear you but if I shout "treat" it is amazing how her hearing improves!;)

Quinny_2

Aren't terriers lovely.

YorkiePud_3

What a lovely looking little dog! He's going to be a really loyal and loving dog I bet ... and I love what it says on his lead, too ... ha ha ha!!

LoopyLinz

YorkiePud wrote: »

What a lovely looking little dog! He's going to be a really loyal and loving dog I bet ... and I love what it says on his lead, too ... ha ha ha!!

Lol thanks Yorkie. We let him pick it himself! We took him to Pets at Home, held up three we liked and he grabbed at that one! Lol His collar is the same. Seems to suit him!

meerkat2007

LoopyLinz wrote: »

Lol thanks Yorkie. We let him pick it himself! We took him to Pets at Home, held up three we liked and he grabbed at that one! Lol His collar is the same. Seems to suit him!

And who says dogs can't read?

BitterAndTwisted

Oh, thank you so much for the pictures! He's a handsome little man and his funny coat just adds to the attraction.

I'm sure you'll all be very, very happy together.