Home behaviour still improving

The boys are still getting better at home when we have visitors. Over the past few weeks we've had more people coming and going in the house than usual, between friends visiting and a new estate agent popping in for photos, updates etc..
The boys are still very excited when someone comes in, but they do respond to our commands to not jump up, and the excitement dies down after perhaps 2 minutes now, where as it was 10 minutes originally, then down to 5 mintues as we tried to put our new procedures into action. Once their initial excitement has worn off, they are fine.
They still go mental when the doorbell goes, but we've still not spent any concerted time trying to fix this, we need to devote a couple of hours over a weekend to it. I saw some progress months ago when I tried for just a few minutes, so I'm sure we can sort this too.

Fun in the Snow

We finally had some decent snow in High Wycombe in early February, and I love taking the boys out to play in it. On this occasion we went along a walk through some local woods to a large park area, where I knew the chances of us meeting other dogs were pretty high. On the way to and from the park we didn't meet anyone though, and I was happy to let them off for a runaround, and as is the way with them, so long as there are no other dogs around to distract them, their recall is good. When we were at the park I did let them off the lead, and neither of them went more than 30 metres away without checking to see where I was. After 5 minutes or so a chubby brown labrador appeared with his owner; the dog was quite old and seemed very relaxed. I had already recalled Mishka before he saw this other dog, and got him on the lead. I was happy for Jackson to stay off the lead and go and say hello. Mishka was straining to go and say hello too, so I asked the owner if it was OK for Mishka to go over, and he had no problem. Mishka went for a good sniff, and did his usual thing of rearing up, though there was no barking. He then tried humping this dog (definitely not a bitch!) and I was too slow to try and deter this behaviour, I should have been quicker really. After a minute or so the owner started to wander off and his dog followed, with Jackson in close proximity. Mishka was less certain about where to go, and after looking at those two dogs, and then at me, he came to me when I called, which I was very pleased with. Jackson and this lab had found a Rotty to play with, about 50 metres away, but after two or three stong calls, even Jackson decided he was better off with me and came over. I was relieved and pleasantly surprised, I had thought I would have to go and get him, but I tried having some faith in him and in myself, and it seemed to work. Perhaps having confidence that he will come if I stand my ground and call him works. I am the pack leader, after all :-)

A New Year and Forward Progress

Happy New Year to both my readers :-) We saw some progress during December.. around the middle of the month I was out with the boys on a Saturday lunchtime in our usual park, and they were off the lead. They were responding well to me and the whistle, and then the inevitable happened - a lady appeared in the park with her dog. This is a situation we've been working towards for months, but had hoped that it would happen under circumstances that we could control, i.e. with a dog trainer on hand, and with dogs whose handlers were happy for our lads to be off the lead around their dogs. However, I figured the wrong thing to do would be to panic and start shouting for the boys to come back, and go running after them. The other dog, a jack russell, was on the lead, and Mishka was the first dog to reach him. He circled the small dog a few times, and had a sniff, but there was no barking. By this time Jackson also arrived, quickly followed by me at a calm, yet fast, walk. Jackson had a few sniffs, but again no barking, and Mishka backed away slightly, but I didn't feel the need to try and grab either dog at this point. The other owner seemed happy for my boys to investigate her dog, although she did comment on how strange her dog was reacting, he seemed shy and afraid. She let him off the lead for all the dogs to play, and he stayed close to her, but still my boys just circled and sniffed, with only Mishka getting vocal, letting off a few barks whilst jumping up on his back legs, but it seemed more like an invitation to play than anything else. It had been about 2 minutes since we'd first seen the dog now, and I felt it was time to see if I could get the boys back. I gave two blasts on the whistle and called Mishka, and whilst he ignored me at first, I repeated this immediately and this time he looked at me, and saw that I was waving the bag with the liver cake in, and he came bounding over. I put him on the lead, and gave him his treat. Jackson came to me as soon as I called his name. So this first interaction with another dog off the lead was a success! I was worried initially, but figured panicking would make the situation worse. The attitude of the other owner helped a lot too, she wasn't overly concerned about my boys, and the enclosed nature of the park reassured me that they were unlikely to disppear a long way away. The following weekend we took the boys on a forest walk where we were pretty certain we'd encounter other dog walkers. Before we did meet other dogs, I took this video just for the fun of it:

Further on, on a narrow trail, we did meet a family walking a small dog coming the other way. The boys were 20 or so metres in front of us on the path when we realised that a meeting was inevitable, so we sped up slightly to catch up with them, but there was just some sniffing and circling, and that was it, we passed by the family, and called for the boys. Mishka actually came to us first, but Jackson set off following the other family for a few seconds, until some persistent calling and whistling got him to return to us.
Later still on the walk we encountered a jogger out with his three dogs at the same time as a walker with a labrador, and here both boys set off to say hi to the lab first, and there was some barking from Mishka, but again we weren't too worried. Mishka did follow the lab on another path as the walker departed, whilst Jackson came back to us and we put him on the lead. Mishka was refusing to come back, and we started to worry that he would continue to ignore us. Then this jogger ran past, followed by his three dogs, and Mishka set off following them, but after being gone for 10 seconds or so, he came back to us after persistent calling, whistling and waving of the cake bag. We put him back on the lead and kept both boys on the lead until we got back to the car.
So, not perfect behaviour, but also not a complete disaster either.
We're completing the questionnaire sent to us by this local trainer who runs Social Walk classes, and so hopefully the boys will get to participate in a few of those soon.