4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Guest]

leave water out all the time for Molly or remove it in the evening?

 

The home fed her at 0930am and 1630pm but we've left some dry food out for her all day but will start taking the bowl away after her 2 feeds, now that she's settling in, but what do we do about the water?

[ali-s]

Archie has access to water all the time. He is fed on dry dog food so I find he needs to drink more often, although the level of the water in his bowl doesn't seem to go down much overnight.

[Guest]

thank you

[Redwing]

I would leave it down unless you are getting lots of accidents in the night. Our dog is crated at night so doesn't drink between 10:30pm and 7:00am and has no ill effects so they can do without it overnight.

 

The food can be used to assert yourself as pack leaders, if you leave it down all day you lose your chance to assert your top-dogged-ness (?) When we left food down all day we were walked all over (not actually ) when we controlled meal times we found Otis much less dominant - I think its to do with telling them they can't have everything when they want it, we had to control access to toys too but then our dog was a monster puppy and and your new dog looks sweet so hopefully you wont get any of those problems!

[Guest]

cheers

[ali-s]

Archie is the last member of this family to be given his meals in this house. I am pack leader and if I decide I would like his food I take away his food bowl (he does get it back). same goes with his toys.

[The Dogmother]

Food needs to be taken up if she doesn't eat it after 10 minutes, but always leave water out for her, especially at night - you can get clip on bowls to put inside the crate. Ruby has alll her meals in the crate (with the door open)

[Guest]

thanks guys xxx

[The Dogmother]

Hand feeding to control dominance is good; I sometimes feed Ruby her raw meat and bones by hand so that she knows I have control over it. It teaches them to be gentle too, which is essential with my bouncy pup!

[ChickenJo]

more of the same really ... water down all the time, food taken up after each meal. Taking food / toys / bones away (then giving them back) is a brilliant way to show who the boss is

 

A couple more easy things to assert dominance ... make sure they have manners when going through doorways and up and down stairs ... you should always always go first (also ensures I dont get taken out by an over excited dobie!!)

 

When youre giving her some attention try and rub her on the top of her head for a while .... you'll probably find that she tries to wriggle around so you rub under her chin, but the top dog always takes the highest position (obviously give her lots of lovely tummy rubs too!!)

[The Dogmother]

There's a lovely dobie that walks in our park - his owner says that they have constant battles with the dominance issue.

[Guest]

thanks guys

 

I'm not sure about the doorway stairs thing, I prefer to see her in front of me, that way I don't trip over her! She's so ickle

[ChickenJo]

true ... I'd forgotten yours was only diddy!!

 

Grace is a complete soft-chops, but dobies certainly do try their luck somtimes (mainly with Hubs as he's soft as tripe with her and she knows she can get away with it!!)

 

the first 2 years of training her were murder, but it must be like having a baby as I cant seem to remember it all that well and would do it again in a heart beat

[The Dogmother]

How is the little doglet these days?