Jo's Old Site

When my nephews and nieces came out last weekend I found out how useful dog crates are, and although my youngest niece and second eldest nephew were pretty full on with Ilse it didn’t bother her much.

As she took their attention very well and when I thought she needed a break I then put her in her crate.

Crates are useful, as they give puppies and dogs their own space; it also gives ourselves time to do other things like housework: then another thing a crate can do is get a puppy used to being on its own for a while and it also teaches puppies to be quiet.

I usually leave the radio on too for Ilse, as she likes hearing voices, and I discovered this when people had come to see her.

But also getting back to when we go out without our dogs, or puppies we also have to remember to do it with the minimum of fuss, and we shouldn’t leave them home alone for too long either.

Then another way a crate can be useful is before we feed our dog, as instead of having them run and getting themselves worked up about food (and us having to nag them to be quiet) we can just put them in their crate and then let them out when they are about to be fed.

Also how do we teach our dogs to be quiet? Well if we are only gone for a short while sometimes ignoring them works.

As this teaches them to settle themselves down, but recently as mum and I were talking about this my mother told me that: it’s also a good thing to do something different and this made sense to me as dogs do bark for many reasons.

So what I’m saying is that it is a good idea to have a few different ways, to get the message across; as what also works is holding the dog’s or pup’s muzzle and saying quiet but I’m also am aware of another thing I do and that is allowing mum and dad to teach Ilse things as well.

Some people don’t like this idea of having other people to teach our dogs things, but it doesn’t necessary mean that our dog will bond to other people instead of us; as I think that learning something from everyone in the household will teach a dog where they belong in the pack.