shawnee Posted July 30, 2006 Report Share Posted July 30, 2006 Hi JoC No more nosier than I am!!! I am in Carville (Durham). We are seeing Jo Churlish, do you know her? We have a rescue dog and just have one or two things to iron out, mainly Shawnees barking and lunging at other dogs. I looked around a few classes and trainers in Durham (ish) area and felt immediately at ease with Jo Ch where as at the other places, I wasnt convinced with their methods/attitude. Thats not to say they werent good, just not for me!! We are making progress just about every day, now I have learnt not to freak when i see another dog about 4 mile away on the horizon!!! She is fab, very kind and gentle but firm. Hunderthwaite is just south of Hamsterley Forest, so definately close enough. I am guessing about 35 mins drive? Shawnee loves to learn new things and I get a mega buzz out of teaching her and have thought in the future we would love to give agility a go but obviously we wont be going until Shawnee is happy with other dogs being so close. And although Shawnee is a young Lab, she is very laid back and wont run if a walk will do so it cant be to serious!!! Hope you get next week and I would love to hear all about it. Lesley x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoC Posted August 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2006 Hi JoC No more nosier than I am!!! I am in Carville (Durham). We are seeing Jo Churlish, do you know her? We have a rescue dog and just have one or two things to iron out, mainly Shawnees barking and lunging at other dogs. I looked around a few classes and trainers in Durham (ish) area and felt immediately at ease with Jo Ch where as at the other places, I wasnt convinced with their methods/attitude. Thats not to say they werent good, just not for me!! We are making progress just about every day, now I have learnt not to freak when i see another dog about 4 mile away on the horizon!!! She is fab, very kind and gentle but firm. Hunderthwaite is just south of Hamsterley Forest, so definately close enough. I am guessing about 35 mins drive? Shawnee loves to learn new things and I get a mega buzz out of teaching her and have thought in the future we would love to give agility a go but obviously we wont be going until Shawnee is happy with other dogs being so close. And although Shawnee is a young Lab, she is very laid back and wont run if a walk will do so it cant be to serious!!! Hope you get next week and I would love to hear all about it. Lesley x Hiya, I sort of know her, met her a John Rogerson course but didn't see any of her training, although I've heard loads of good things about her! I'm guessing Shawnee is dog aggressive? What programme are you following with Jo? I do training, but don't do behaviour and would really like to have someone to recommend, I don't feel comfortable recommending someone when I have no idea what they do! From what I can tell though, she does seem good. I've given lots of people her number for adult classes, but obviously want to check that's ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnee Posted August 1, 2006 Report Share Posted August 1, 2006 (edited) Hi JoC Although we are treating Shawnee as if she is dog aggressive, I think it is more undersocialisation(Shawnee is a rescue who we have had for 3 months now, and started working with Jo Ch about 6 weeks ago) . She usually doesnt (but has on occasion) show 'agressive' barking, just play bowing, barking and desparately trying to get to the other dogs which to me still isnt appropriate, I need to be able to walk Shawnee whilst pushing a pushchair so she needs to be calm. If a dog comes up to Shawnee quickly, she just sniffs and plays which is great and I would love her to be able to play freely, but she has to learn when she can and when she cant. What I found in normal walks, if an off lead dog approaches Shawnee without her realising she is fine but then goes nuts when she sees any other dogs for the rest of the walk! We are just taking things really really slowly getting Shawnee closer and closer to other dogs while ignoring any barking and rewarding when she ignores the other dogs. Jo has access to some brilliant stooge dogs (who are soooo beautiful, one little one rides one of their ponies!!!) and we are just walking around getting closer. It is working great, but in the real world I dont help cause when I see another dog I go all pathetic incase Shawnee barks and upsets the other dog/owner! Another problem Jo Ch helped us with was Shawnee pulling on the lead. We tried just stopping dead every time she pulled but Shawnee is so laid back, she just stood perfectly still and wasnt in the slighted bit interested in finding out why we had stopped therefor the lead never slackened without me calling Shawnee back which sort of defeated the object. Jo showed us how to change direction without hurting Shawnees neck and it works a treat. We have to do it at the beginning of every walk for about 5 mins then it clicks, ah right, you want to tell me where to go, I dont need to tell you!!!! Everything is done for the good and well being of the dog which is what I liked. I wouldnt hesitate to recommend her, but then again I am not a professional like you. I just went on gut instinct. Sorry to hijack you agility thread Lesley x edited for dreadful spelling!! Edited August 1, 2006 by shawnee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoC Posted August 2, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2006 That's so interesting thanks, she does sound fantastic! I'm meeting up with her associate who's doing the same college course as me, and I know she's reward based. Some people can be reward based a lot of the time, but still resort to aversives for things like aggression which does concern me and I wouldn't want to refer someone to anybody like that, doesn't sound like Jo Ch is like that though. I was worried when I found out someone with that name was operating in a similar area to me cos it's similar to my name and was worried people would get us confused. If we're both employing the same methods then there's nothing to worry about! It's good to know there are decent people in the North East, they're few and far between though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnee Posted August 2, 2006 Report Share Posted August 2, 2006 It's good to know there are decent people in the North East, they're few and far between though! I know what you mean, some of the 'answers' I got included - 'Ah dont worry about her barking, just bring her in and let her off with these lot, we have a squeezee bottle for when she gets too bad' and 'you have got a choke chain havent you?' and 'sits are easy, you just pull the lead up and push their a*^e down'. Not really my cup of tea. The classes I visited ranged from great, to a bit behind to downright dangerous. Lesley x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoC Posted August 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2006 (edited) Little game of 'good news / bad news' Good news: agility was fab, the trainer was lovely, purely reward based and Charlie did brilliantly. Bad news: She's moving to Scotland Back to the drawing board Edited August 3, 2006 by JoC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traceymcl Posted August 4, 2006 Report Share Posted August 4, 2006 Little game of 'good news / bad news' Good news: agility was fab, the trainer was lovely, purely reward based and Charlie did brilliantly. Bad news: She's moving to Scotland Back to the drawing board Hi Jo, glad you had fun but what a shame your trainer is moving. Do you know where in Scotland she's going? You'll just have to move up here as well! Tracey xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoC Posted August 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2006 Hi Tracey, I think she might be a bit scared if I follow her to Scotland!! I think she said it's somewhere near Gretna, she did say places and John was there so I'll ask him, I was too busy being upset. He had SUCH a good time and she was so wonderful with him, he was slightly firm with him when he jumped up and stole his toy from her (Johns dad always hides toys in his pocket and encourages Charlie to take it out again, wont stop even when you tell him) she said 'no' in a firm voice (not yelling/shouting, just 'I'm not messing about') and he responded well to that, he *knew* she wasn't going to hurt him and just settled down but didn't stop wagging his tail. She'll be doing activity holidays when she's set up, so I gave her my email address and told her to let me know when she was doing them cos I was booking on! I'll post the details of her activity holidays on here as well, I think they'll be amazing. I just wish I'd found her before now She did tell me about a club that does heelwork to music nearby so I might be doing that instead of agility. There were a couple of other agility clubs she mentioned, but she did say they were both harsher than she'd like, I want to find somwhere I'm happy so he can be too. by the way, we met up with Vicky from college and her gorgeous dog for a walk, Charlie was an angel and Monty is such a beautiful, wonderful dog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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