Many of us like to bring our dogs with us on vacation.  Whether it’s a week at the cottage or camping and hiking, it’s important to do a bit of planning ahead of time.  This includes the obvious of packing food and bowls and should also include the location of the nearest veterinarian.  For those who really like to go off the beaten track, it’s important to know more than just a bit about first aid for both you and your dog.  Our resident Pet First Aid instructor, Lynda Kitson offers a great course called “Off the Grid”.  Check out this along with her other courses (http://www.k9compass.com/). 

Holidays are great but sometimes our four legged friends aren’t able to join us on our adventures.  Check out my April 2013 blog post to find out about dog care planning..
 
If you’re like me, you’ll be missing your canine companion.  On my first holiday without my dogs, I actually brought pictures of them with me.  On another holiday, I fed my leftover food to street dogs (more than once!!).  I found an interesting option for people like me.  There’s a site (http://www.trustedhousesitters.com)  that connects people who love to travel with people who will house sit and take care of your pet.  As the website says “We connect home and pet owners who need a sitter, when going away, with trustworthy people who are happy to sit for FREE.”  What a great idea … this is definitely worth checking out!

As some of you know, I’ve been having some challenges with young Twizzler (see my blog post).  I am happy to report that we have made some progress.  I had tried a number of things - all had some positive impact but the progress was slow.  In the end, I decided to try out a technique called Behaviour Adjustment Training (BAT).  I enrolled in a BAT class called “Snappy to Happy” (Gen, is a BAT certified instructor with Pawsitive Plus). 

There are a number of things that I loved about this class.  There was a high instructor to student ratio which ensured that all got the attention they needed and all worked safely.  We started our 6 week session working our dogs in controlled scenarios.  Once our dogs were comfortable with each other, we progressed to walking in neighbourhoods which eventually included downtown Oakville, meeting new dogs and practicing our new skills.  I think the greatest success of this class was evidenced by a little Maltese who at the beginning of the class was so reactive, it had to work behind a building while the rest of the class worked at about 200’ away.  By the end of our 6 weeks, this little dog was walking with us through the streets!

For Twizzler, this class gave him the skills to self-regulate and while we aren’t tearing up agility courses in a trial yet, we are able to enter the ring and do a few pieces of equipment.  He’s even been to agility drop in’s at new locations and has done extremely well.  These are all small (maybe tiny) steps forward but steps in the right direction all the same.  In the meantime, both Twizzler and I are having fun playing BAT, seeking out stranger dogs in new places.  For those of you with dogs who have impulse control issues, BAT might be the key.