Cricket's Grand Day Out

You may or may not be aware we have been fostering a couple of ferrets. Dizzy and Cricket have been with us for a couple of weeks now and they have been looking for a home during that time.

Last week Crickets luck was in, when Jaime was contacted by a girl from Aberdeen who had done her research and was looking for a ferret to keep as a house pet. Cricket will fit the bill no question, she is an easy going playful ferret and a great place for a new owner to start.

In order to get Cricket to her new home we arranged to meet in Edinburgh on Saturday. As Loki and Duffy have not yet been on a train we thought it would be a great time to try them out.

After the usual 6am dog walk, we packed Cricket into a carry cage and made off for Newcastle to catch a train to Edinburgh, dogs and all. Our seats were booked on a train departing just after 9am and we were at the station in fairly good time.

On boarding the train we found it was possibly a little busier than we had expected and looked like it might be a little to cramped to take the dogs further into the carriage than by the entrance door. Our seats were at a table which we would have shared with two other passengers. I suggested that Jaime take her seat and put Cricket on mine and I would stay by the doors with the dogs so as to be the least amount of inconvience and keep the dogs comfortable.

Around 2 minutes out of the station Jaime came back down the train and waved for me to come up to the table which was now totally vacated. Whether it was the prospect of travelling with a little weasel or the delicate fragrance which comes with a female ferret the seat occupants apparently up and left about 30 seconds after Jaime sat down with a comment to the effect... "Welllll, I'm not staying here". So a table all to ourselves worked out very nicely.

Loki and Duffy settled themselves nicely under the table and slept most of the way, as did Cricket in her cage.

All arrived in Edinburgh safely and with out event, and Cricket met up with his new owner. She made it back to Aberdeen safe and sound and settled in her new home under her new name Guinness.

... and the moral of the story, if your looking to get a comfortable space during train travel, carry a ferret.

Blue comes to stay

As some good friends were going on holiday recently, we had the chance to take care of one of their dogs for a week.

Blue is a mature white Husky and is a very handsome chap as you can see.

Blue is a very calm dog and settled with Loki and Duffy and was no trouble for the week he was with us. In some respects it was nice having a slightly larger pack.

Training Techniques

There is a couple of popular schools of thought when it comes to dog training at the minute and we don't want to sway anyones decision on which is best for them right now.

The "Dog Listener" method for which Jan Fennell is the author who leads the field. It’s a very hands off slow training method based almost totally on positive rewards and very little if an negative reprimand to your dog. This is an ethos followed by most of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Certified (APDT) trainers in the UK. Its favoured by many of the dog behaviourists but can be ineffective with many dogs.

Then you have the Ceser Millan "Dog Whisperer" method which is very hands on and is based on both positive and negative interaction with your dog. Rewards for good behaviour and not scolding but appropriate negative response for unwanted behaviour. This method also relys heavily on some basic ground rules, always going before the dog, controlling the dog before it gets to eat a meal and on a great deal of exercise. But caution has to be taken trying to use some of the techniques described and are often best left to a professional.

One of the most important things from each of the techniques is making sure that everyone in your family is seen by the dog as superior.

Jaime and I sit somewhere in between these two training methods and our rescue dogs have turned out well. We exercise them for around two to three hours a day over three walks and practice training on about a third of the walks. It’s a lot of work but the dogs we have as a result are fantastic.

Mistaken Identity

While Jaime has been away for the last two weeks I've had all three, one hour dog walks clocking up around 4 to 5 miles a day rain or shine. Its fairly rewarding to see the dogs stretched out fast asleep for hours at a time after a walk. It amazes me how many people miss the simplicity of using exercises to keep their dogs from getting up to mischief.

On a fairly regular basis we encounter people who comment on our dogs looking like this or that and I've compiled a little list to show some of these peoples opinions.

So here's Loki and Duffy to refresh your memory on how they actually look...

Duffy

Loki

... and now the madness of what some people have said our dogs look like.

Hyena

Dutch Herder / Dutch Shepard Dog

Jackal

African Hunting Dog

We have also had Loki described as "One of those... a Pit Bull", I'm not going to dignify it with much of a comment because that level of stupidity and ignorance makes my blood boil and the idiot who uttered such a comment needs a good talking to.

Daddy Duffy

Its kitten time again. Jaime has been hand rearing four, two week old kittens who's mother died. Hand Rearing, means that they need feeding ever couple of hours... EVERY couple of hours, day and night. Jaime has been doing the honors and is very tired but has been doing a great job of feeding and the less pleasent bottom stimulation which the mother cat would do to encourage the little ones to... what could be considered completing the digestive process.

As usual Duffy was paying particular attention to the fluffy critters brought in to the house. Jaime allowed Duffy to gradually get closer to the kittens over a day or two. Eventually he graduated to sniffing and licking them and from there he seemed to develop a paternal nature we had not seen before. He was pleased each time he saw them and was very happy to help "complete the digestive process" and settle beside them.

The Wet Weekend

This weekend we took a trip to Sheffield to visit friends and take a walk around the gardens of Chatsworth House. We had a run of bad luck but it was a good weekend non the less.

Only about 45 minutes from home we discovered the exhaust on the car was starting to blow and make noises like a boy racer had spent a few hundred pounds to give it a throaty roar. We considered turning around for about 30 seconds and then decided we could handle the noise and cranked up the radio to complete the "Charver" effect.

Our drive was through torrential rain which added to our journey time, but we were fortunate that as we approached Chatsworth House the rain started to lighten. The combination of stotting rain and the loud radio had us all but forgetting the exhaust noise, until we stopped at the parking ticket booth and rolled down the window to an attendant who had to shout over our din and give us a slightly disapproving glance.

Having set impressions high with our subtle arrival, we followed this with a brief fountain diving incident in the court yard by the car park. As we walked up to the centre of the court yard, Duffy eyed up the stone wall which formed the edge of the fountain and before Jaime could react, jumped to perform one of his favorite tricks of walking on raised walls. Unfortunately the rim was somewhat thinner than he had expected and in he went under the watchful eyes of the all in the court yard.

The gardens of Chatsworth are very impressive and filled with water features and sculptures as well as an amazing array of flowers and trees. We managed to enjoy a good walk around without any further incidents and only getting mildly wet from the drizzle.

Saturday evening the dogs were shattered and they were asleep by about 6pm and could not even be tempted to chew on some raw hide. Jaime and I went out for some food and drink with our friends Phil and Mandy to a local pub and had a great evening.

Stripie dogs can jump!

Well our little foster family is now kitten free and we have our spare room back. The ferals have now had their vaccinations and will soon go up for adoptions, so fingers crossed for new homes.

That leaves us with just the three ferrets. I had initial concerns about "The Witch" bullying all the other ferrets including Jaime's own Enzo and Flash. But Jaime assured me its ok as ferrets can interact very roughly especially on first meeting to establish a form of pecking order. On her first night here she was really going at Flash and was even dragging Enzo (Jaime's full grown male ferret) across the yard. The Witch is now segregated from Enzo at all times, but for her own safety as Enzo was caught trying to use her head as a Pogo stick in retribution and continues to try and keep her at the bottom of the heap.

Less animals means Jaime has time for longer dog walks in the evening and we're all enjoying it all the more when the weather is warm. However its not always warm... last night for instance we had a major down pour which Jaime and the dogs got caught in and by the time they got home they were totally SOAKED in fact her shoes are still wet this evening. Unfortunately I didn't capture any pictures of that but I did manage a few from the night before which was brilliant blue skys which give us a chance to put the dogs through their paces for a little while.