Breaking terrier to Cats! and overall training

[Jordb543 9]

Hi all,

 

as some of you know i have a plummer/lakeland terrier, and because of him i am keen to start bushing as an activity for the dog and to keep the snakes fed ,

 

i got him at 7months old, the people i got him from where nice enough and said he was 'untrainable' and they no longer wanted him they never mentioned he had been used for working but when they said he was good with ferrets, and that his dad was a great working dog and told me the kennels he was from, they also had another dog there which im pretty sure was his litter mate, which was trained to be a ratting dog, and he has a few scars on his muzzle, so i assumed he was tried very early on and didnt give what they wanted so they put him up for sale,

 

and he had only ever been spoken too in welsh and the only english word he knew was his name 'barney', he also paid no attention to people at all and didnt have a clue how to socialise with them only other dogs, so i had to take him right back to basics,

 

and as he was a puppy i wanted to bring the puppy side out in him, so lots of fuss and attention and playing, whilst doing that he was having 3 walks a day to work on his lead training, and his recall which was very bad, you would let off the lead an he would run an absolute mile, but im my eyes you cant properly train a dog off the lead unless he is actually off the lead so i stuck at it!

 

also geting him to take an interest in a ball was also a big job and after alot of hours of work and more walks then you can imagine he is now spot on, it all seemed to click within 3days around a month ago, when he finally picked up the tennis ball! the recall was slowly getting better, as was his reaction to other dogs (obsessed with them and would follow them for hours if id of let him!) now his recall is bang on, all he wants to do is play ball and he basically ignores other dogs unless they are in his face then he calmly smells them and leaves them alone, ,

 

so after all that progress i felt he was finally ready to be broken to my mums 4 cats one of which is smaller then a rabbit so i got his cage, the lead and muzzled him up, and my secret weapon a plastic milk bottle with stones in it

 

the milk bottle is to break his focus on the cats and divert his attention off them, however it worked so much better then i could ever have imagined,

 

i took him on a 6 mile run this morning to drain his energy before meeting the cats, i figured him chasing and attacking the cats is a form of energy release so if he doesnt have alot of energy he will be easier to break, so he was muzzled up and let him loose in the house as expected he chased a cat, i shook the bottle and he froze then skullked away, for some reason he is shit scared of the sound it makes,

 

now he is walking past the cats and completely ignoring them even with the muzzle off so as you can imagine i am happy as larry , i will keep an eye on him for the next few weeks and keep going as i am and hopefully if all is well i will go on my first ever bushing trip with him ,

 

also he no longer barks at the cats when they walk past his kennel outside which means i can get a lie in tomorrow and not be woken up by his barks at the cats as they sit in the sun outside the kennel door!!

Edited October 13, 2010 by Jordb543