Vivian Silverstein of Live With Your Dog, GAL's recommended behaviourist, recently opened The Behaviour Centre in Cambuslang, Glasgow.
GAL asked Vivian to consider training classes aimed specifically at greyhounds and lurchers and she is happy to do so - now all she needs are some needy dogs.
To register for classes or for more information contact Vivian:
Vivian would like to gauge interest within GAL members so, -
The idea is there will be 2 classes
1. 'Naughty but Nice' 2. Normal training classes (including clicker training)
the first class will be for the bad boys, second for the good boys..
The classes would be restricted to 6 members, cost for an 8 week course (1 class per week in Cambuslang) is £60. vivian stresses that the course is 'modular', it's not a case of turning up to a couple then missing one and going back.....
The courses will also count towards the kennel club 'Good Citizen Awards'
Denver will be attending the "naughty but nice" class for canibal greyhounds...
Will let people know how we get on...
May take Boston and Lita to the "Your Dog is Not a Psychopath and Just Wants to Learn New Things to Increase Food Intake" class, and if we do, will keep folks posted with that too.
Are there any classes over our way, in East Lothian? Not necessarily Vivian's (can't imagine that she'd want to travel all the way through - though that would be excellent!) but something for a bit of stimulation and socialisation for Pearly. She loves the training that we do with her ourselves and a spot of expert advice would be great. Thanks!
We are in East lothian as well and would love to take Blue to training classes. It is a constant battle to try to get him to do anything to command it seems he has the memory of a goldfish!
Please could you let us know if you hear of any suitable ones
Amanda - ever tried cooked chicken as the reward? Every fortnight we cook a stack of chicken drumsticks for the dog and then freeze them. One at a time we thaw out a drumstrick and then peel off the bits of chicken and use it for training - mainly recall. Works wonders for us!
We also use all the stock by draining it off, and then pouring it into ice cube trays. Every night we microwave a cube and pour it onto her dry food just to make sure she eats it all - she never used to eat dry food you see.
Chicken.....great stuff. But you have to wonder...has the doggy got us trained!!
We havn't tried chicken but we always have pockets full of doggy treats when we are out. We invested in a shepherds whistle and gave him a treat every time he came to it. Now when its blown he comes sooo fast he has knocked me off my feet on more than one occasion!
The main problem we have with him is the stay or lie down command. He will stay for about 2 secs then is off trying to figure out ways to snaffle our tea, empty the bin etc. Might have to resort to bribing with chicken. Still we only got him in July so we are not doing too badly.
Intrestingly enough he does sit..he sits and stares at you when he thinks its tea time. The poor thing looks so strange with his bottom hovering about 2 inches above ground.
The training class I use is K9 Needs and Brian has done a talk for us before with Vivian. He helped me a lot with Aisha and he has donated 2 1hr lessons for the auction. This will be a 1 to 1 with owner trainer and dog.
In our defence she aint blackmailable with treats like a lot of the greyhounds. I'm looking forward to it. Carol
Hi Carol, I hope you will really enjoy the class as much as we all did, its great fun. Keera sounds a bit like Mac when it comes to treats, but a great tip Viv gave me was to make sure Mac wasn't fed prior to going to the class,.....that worked for Mac. Look forward to hear how Keera is training you!