Let's See Your Dogs!!

I love Blue Heelers. The cattle farm that I worked on had them for working the cattle. It is amazing how instinctual herding is for them. My current pup is part Blue Heeler, too.

I went through that for a while, too!

"Why are you barking?!"
(Just wants a couch buddy)

 

Good boy!

 

Good boy??

Hell, he HAS it goin on.

That's no good boy, that is an AWESOME wing man!!!

 

He will follow my daughter around her house moving from one side to another at her heels. Awesome to watch. Extremely intelligent as well.

 

Reported

 

Welcome to TW. Nice truck and nice dog. What part of AZ are you in?

 

Had my truck for about a month now and absolutely loving it! My girl seems to as well!!

 

I get that look regularly. I have found the interpretation of "WHY are you sitting and not paying attention to ME?" to be accurate 96% of the time the other 4% is something along the lines of "I know nothing about any problem(s) you might find when you get up. It was NOT me."

 

I get that same thing from Boomer every morning. If I move and it is not towards a door he attempts to herd me to the door by blocking all other path and shouldering me the direction he want me to go.

 

How's things going between him and your youngin?

 

One of the things you can try is to force the issue in safe situations. While wagging her tail, our pup likes to let out a bark or a woof at people she sees in public settings. We have been working on breaking her of this habit. In order to give her more practice we will take her for a walk in a dog friendly store like Lowes or Home Depot where she is likely to meet many people. After awhile she in the store she is more desensitized to meeting people and less likely to bark. We keep treats ready and when she barks or woofs we distract her and get her to pay attention to us. We use a different command other than no because no gets used for too many situations typically. When we want her to stop a behavior or to quiet down we say "enough". "Enough" is very different then "no" and is more specific to her behavior. Then when she is quiet and paying attention to us we offer her a treat and tell her "Good quiet" to reinforce the behavior we want. It takes time, but it works. "No" implies you never want her to do a behavior, "enough" implies that she has done the behavior and you would like her to stop. There is a subtle difference but and important difference. We still want her to bark and warn us about strangers or situations that cause her stress or discomfort because we want to know when she feels that way. But we also want to teach her to respond to our command that it is ok and she needs to stop the behavior she is doing.

I would also encourage you to work with him to teach him to go to his "safe" space in your house. We use the word blanket and have a blanket that is specifically hers. We use a blanket because we want the ability to take the blanket with us and have her be able to have that safe place where ever she is when we visit other places. We are continuing to work with our dog by standing on or near the blanket to start, calling to her, holding the treat over the blanket so she has to step on the blanket to get it. Once she actually touches the blanket we excitedly say "YES", good blanket and then we lead her away from the blanket and repeat, trying to move a little farther away as we can but still having her stand on the blanket. We are not there yet but we are working towards having her lay on the blanket when she gets there. If you can teach your dog to go to his safe spot then when he is a bit out of control you can command him to an area and get him back under control. Make sense?

 

How I found her sleeping

 

Well they're not mine and they're not dogs but these two clowns just showed up down the street from me. I've seen a couple different adults in the area over the past couple years but these are the first kits.





They appear to be about 6, maybe 7 months old. There is supposed to be another pair about a 1/4 mile down the street.

 

He's a big baby.

 

Making himself comfortable....