Happy New Year

[Stewart]

Happy New Year Forum Members from Bonnie Scotland. Hogmanay has now passed and the hangovers are all but gone. Phew!!!

I hope you all have a teriffic 2006.

Apologies for not being online for a while but a mixture of Broadband/PC problems left me out in the cold for a while.

Anyway, here is an update on Pepper. She is now 4 months old and is just the best little dog. Full of mischief and cheek. House training is going great. She now lets us know when she needs out by going to the door and looking at us with "those" eyes. She still has the odd accident, but hey, she's only 4 months.

She loves going for walks, but tries to eat ANYTHING in her path. Can be quite frustrating when you have to stop every minute or so to take something out of her mouth.

Her colour is changing from dark to blonde with, as I've said before, pure white patches in places. Looks nice though.

Now that she's reached 4 months, does anyone have any extra advice or tips? What should we expect in the coming months?

Here are some photographs of the little monster. You can just about make out her white tail in the second one. Hope they turn out.

[Scully'sMom]

Happy New Year to you as well!

Pepper is just adorable. I like the first one - the "smile" is great.

[sanford]

Hi Stewart,

Glad to hear adorable Piper is doing so well!

You commented on Piper's attempts to eat everything in her path. You & Piper are hardly alone in this respect. I lost count of the times I wrestle "street food" out of my pooch's mouth. People stare at me as if I'm attempting to strangle him!

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but the "Leave it!" and "drop it!" commands are vital in correcting this behavior. Like most training methods, it takes a lot of consistant diligence to anticipate that Piper will pick up something and stop her before she does.

Some people use aversion therapy by swiping the dog's mouth with a stick dipped in bitter apple, when their dog picks up something. Others use a treat as positive reinforcement, when the dog obeys the "leave it" command. Eventually, these corrections are supposed to cure the problem, but who knows?

I'm sure that others on this site will have suggestions for you.

Good luck!

[sanford]

Oops! Sorry, Stewart. In my reply to you, I called Pepper, Piper.

Please apologize to Pepper for me. Thanks!

[Anna_525]

Pepper looks like a happy dog! We got Alfie when he was around 18 months old. He was fully housetrained, but he marked around our house for the first few days. He also liked to escape and continues to try to escape when he sees any opening to the outside world. This is the one thing that his former owner told us -- his desire to scoot out of the house only increased as he grew older. He would dig himself out of the physical fence so they installed an invisible fence. That stopped the digging right away. However, their front door is such that it's impossible to keep him from running out. He ran out more than 10 times, twice they had to call the police to help retrieve him. This was the main reason they gave him up for adoption. Lucky for us! We're very happy to have him as part of our family. We've also been lucky in keeping him from escaping. It only happened 3x and so far, we've kept all doors tightly monitored for any further attempts.

Alfie is used to the no command that whenever he puts something in his mouth, a big NO from us will result in him leaving it on the street. Then we give him a treat. Earlier, when we were still establishing the commands, he ate an entire dead bird and even swallowed it in a hurry before we could take it out of his mouth. It literally made me sick He threw it up hours later at home. When I flushed it in the toilet, there were feathers all over

Post more pictures of Pepper!

[CathyAnn]

Pepper really does look like a very happy dog! !

Cathy

[Brody'sMom]

What a cutie!

Edited to add: She will probably start teething soon (if she hasn't already), so be prepared for her chewing habits to change (increase). From the photos, I see you have a nice array of toys, that should help keep her from chewing anything inappropriate. Also, Cairns have issues with retained baby teeth, if you notice double teeth (usually obvious in the big canine teeth) you should consider a trip to the vet for extraction.

[MikeC]

Pepper looks exactly like my Duffy did when he was her age. She is adorable!

Mike

[Eliz222]

Pepper looks sooooooo happy! Thanks for the pictures and welcome back!