Working with a puppy - it's enjoyable!

Kosmaj:. pansion za pse. Welcome to a new hotel for dogs

A new hotel "Zivot sa psima" starts working in beautiful Kosmaj area.
www.kosmaj-dog.com  
 kosmajdog@gmail.com
+3816 970 83 54
+3816 911 51 474

You are welcome!

+35 C. Hard time for your pets!

When this Summer ends, for God's sake?

I'm wondering: why those two-legged like Summer?

       Summer is not  an easy  period for your pets. Particularly when its too hot - + 25 and higher. + 35 is unbearable. Let your pets relax where they choose.They should have fresh water all day round. Walk them out early in the morning and late in the evening. Better to stop any training. If you have an aged dog it might be necessary to give him/her pills to support heart working.

Pansion "Zivot za psima" in Kosmaj area

Mladenovac, Velica Ivanca
www.kosmaj-dog.com
+3816 970 8354
+3816 911 51 474

A new hotel for dogs in Kosmaj area

About humanity and inhumanity of human beings

        This is a dramatic story with a happy end. A starving dog was thrown out from a car... The dying creature could crawl to the entrance of a nearby house where he was found.

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     How cruel one should be to torture a dog and then throw him from the car! It's simply impossible to understand...
     I'm impressed by the great kindness of those people who took care of a dying dog and helped him to return to life!

Alpha & Alpha

     A year and half ago our family got a new member – a two months old malinois. This remarkable event was, of course, highlighted in a post. It was so nice to get a puppy! However, I foresaw some possible troubles as my elder male – strong Alpha Canaan   dog – is very intolerant to any rivals.

    To our great surprise and relief he fully accepted the newcomer. I only slightly taught them how I’d prefer they treat each other. There are some well known methods how to make two male dogs to live together in peace, as it is a big problem for a lot of dog masters. Frankly speaking, we tried to avoid these popular methodic and made an accent on the other side of the “Alphaness” – the strong will of my elder dog to be a leader of a pack means for him to be responsible for his pack.

      He played with the puppy like a loving father, defended him and now even shares with him his favourable mattress!

Jumping - team training

      I fully share the opinion that dog team training can be very effective and much more enjoyable for dogs as well as for men. Particularly it can be useful in exercises where  a dog needs to be brave and sure in his forces. As - for example - in jump training.  

      A lot of young dogs fail to jump over a fence because it is something new for them, however they quite able to jump over the fence physically. In these cases “team jumping” can be a successful method for developing this skill, which is necessary in mondioring, agility and other types of cynological sports. 

Retrieve training of a young malinois. Using positive stimuls

Teaching a dog to take an object.

        

        

        Retrieve or Rapport d’objet lance – this is how the exercise is called in the FCI Rules of Mondioring. However, this skill is considered as necessary in many dogs competitions, tests and exams.  Usually  dog masters, trying to teach a dog this exercise, meet with three main difficulties:  the dog rushes  to catch object the same moment the object is thrown; the dog runs to the object but doesn’t take it; and the dog takes the object and happily runs with him far from the master.

        There are many methodics  how to teach a dog to fulfill the command “apport” and to bring back the thrown object. The most wildly spread mistake is to try to teach a dog to carry out the whole exercise from the very beginning.  It rarely gives fruitful results.

       It seems more effective to divide the exercise into several parts and to help your dog learn it step by step.

      How to teach a dog to take the object? Why he or she will do it?  The dog doesn’t see any  obvious reason for taking it and doesn’t understand why he/she should do it. Many dog owners begin with pushing the object into dog’s mouth and holding the mouth for some time. But usually the dog lets the object fall down the moment his/her owner takes hands away from the mouth as well as the object. Some instructors even fix the dog for not letting him/her run away or turn the head. To my mind the only obvious result is that the dog gets a stress and loses any wish to carry out the exercise.

       It seems much more effective to use positive motivation and increase dog’s interest in the exercise through something that he/she enjoys – tips, playing with a ball, biting a toy, etc. For each dog different stimuls should be chosen.

The key figure of the video is young malinois of working line who likes to bite the toy. So it helped easily to  teach him to take the object. Even showing the toy was a stimul for him to take the object as he knew that he would be awarded and enjoyed the exercise. Do not forget to give command “apport” the moment you suggest your dog to take the object J

What is it - the healthy life of your dog?

     Most of the dog owners answering this question will put on the first place good quality food. Of course, good food with necessary vitamins, and minerals is an important precondition for maintaining health of a dog. A lot of responsible dog owners will be surprised to know that regular quality meals, being of course very important, are not the main thing that keep your dog in good physical form.

     Let’s not forget that dogs, our pets, are predators. And predators  are not always lucky at a hunt. No, I do not think that our pets should starve, for God’s sake! But feeling hunger from time to time will cause them no harm. By the way, a lot  diseases of our pets are provoqued by overeating.

     As experienced dog owners consider that the best formula of dog’s health is the following: good walk and biting once a week.

     

     A good walk doesn’t mean that your dog walk quietly on a leach. A dog should run at least four times more than his owner walk.  The dog should run and  jump   and fight playfully. If there is no space for running  it is possible to play with your dog, for example with disks or balls.

     

      Biting. A lot of people are afraid of dogs’ aggression. However, aggression is a normal instinct of dogs as predators.  Practically every dog irrespective of the breed  becomes aggressive when protect heir food or toy.  It is possible to suppress the aggression but it seems more effective to give the dog possibilities to drop down the aggression. For large breed – shepherd dogs (German shepherd dogs, malinois, herders and a lot of others), dogs, Dobermans etc. - it can be training with a decoy on a training ground, for medium and small breeds – active games when they can bite rubber toys, for example.

     

       These three components – good physical exercises, training or games that increase adrenalin and  help to drop down aggression, quality food – will provide health and energy of your dog.  

     The finish of a healthy day: it seems I'll sleep this night on a mat :))

Malinois: protection of the object – advanced stage

      The goal of the next step of the protection-of-the-object-training is to protect the thing from the decoy who tries to take the object (a bag, chair, etc.).

      The decoy is moving  around the dog at the distance of two meters. The dog bites the decoy  only when he steps inside the circle (remember - the radius of 2 meters?). Once the decoy tries to go away from that distance, the dog should return to the object.

      The most difficult thing in this training  is to teach the dog to come to the object when the decoy is going away with the dog  biting his costume.

Are all dogs good students?

     I believe ‘yes’! For many years I work with two-legged students and come to a conclusion that four-legged students are more attentive, have more zeal and, what is very important, follow each other’s better examples.

    This short video shows an element of obedience training (practically, two commands) with three dogs. One of them – a young herder girl – joined our team only recently. She is not good in focusing her attention. This is the reason why I decided to train her with my other dogs. You will see how her attention and interest in the training is growing an she starts to fulfill the command as her companions.

    In the beginning it’s better not to make such a training long and finish it with a pleasant game.

Would you like your dog to protect your bag?

      Protection of an object is an element of defense training, a mondioring exercise and a rather useful skill in  our everyday life. It’s not very difficult to teach your to protect a bag or other thing you left for a few minutes. The very beginning can be trained even with a puppy of, say, six months old, giving him tips. The second step is more  difficult and need special equipment as the dog should bite. The idea is that the dog should stand on the object and keep under control the circle with the radius of about 2 meters. The dog should bite  only when somebody tries to approach the object stepping in the circle and let him go when he goes away. In the video you can see the very process of teaching.  Make the training enjoyable like a game!

Five in the Jeep including three dogs. Our travel to Serbia

Barking. Is it so annoying?

      Barking. What is our attitude towards barking? Of course it depends upon where we live and why we have a dog. If our dog protects the cattle and barks in case of a danger (a wolf is approaching) we treat barking as a useful talent. However, most of us live without any cattle. In a countryside  people are used to various sounds of animals and as a rule do not pay much attention to dog’s barking.  But in a city it is quite another thing. We can not allow our pets to bark as much as they probably would like to.  What to do if your dog is a big barker? 

       Actually  it is rather difficult to make a dog to keep silent  as barking is a natural instinct. My opinion that it is a Sisyphus’s labor  to struggle against what is only natural.

      There are a lot of reasons for barking – protection, anger, joy, invitation to play, etc. Barking is also dependent upon the breed, character of a dog, age, emotional and physical condition  and other reasons.

     One can hardly find a  universal method how to teach a dog not to bark. A lot of trainings can be applied, even a special collar can be used for this purpose.  But still a lot of masters try to stop barking by simply shouting at a dog. 

      It is quite possible to keep this instinct under  control. But for each case of barking  a special method should be selected.

      In this post I’d like to share one of my “anti-barking” experiences.

How to feed dogs? That is the question!

      How to feed dogs? This is a big question which has no final answer. To be more exact there are a lot of answers. Some masters insist on natural products - meat, riсe, vegetables. Others prefer commercially prepared frozen, dry or canned food. Ones consider that it's better for a dog to eat the same food permanently, others support the idea of a great variety of meals. A lot of publications and internet materials can be found on this dramatic topic (see, for example, http://www.cesarsway.com/dog-care/dog-nutrition/Dishing-Up-Variety).  

     But the trick is the issue of feeding becomes problematic mostly for advanced dog masters. A great number of ordinary people who have dogs do not think deeply about this matter and feed their pets with what they consider suitable. Very often masters share with their beloved four-legged creatures ice-cream, sweets, sweet cookies, even beer, and many other products that are far from being useful for animals. It's too difficult to refuse to give our dogs what we eat ourselves. Our pets are excellent actors and looked into our eyes as they are starving. It seems as an optimum way out to share with them fruits: apples, peaches, persimmmons, even water melons. However, the individual tastes of our pets shoud be taken into account :-))

Faust - one more dog who can be executed for being a dog...

Lennox was recently executed only because of the exterior. Now Faust can be killed on the decision of the mayor, it seems because Faust looks like a dog. It's true that a lot of dogs and other animals are killed every minute all over th

e world. However, these two cases are quite another thing. The death of these two innocent creatures are approved officially - by justice. Is it justice of today humane society? 

Let's prevent being like on the third picture.

There is still time to be humane for Faust. There are already 2380 signs! http:// www.petitionpublique.fr/PeticaoVer.aspx?pi=P2012N22006

Let's save a very beautiful dog! Or it'll be one more Lennox story!

Merci de sauver ce beau chien de la mort décidée par un maire pour des raisons obscures : copinage...voisinage...méchanc

eté humaine...déjà 2380 signatures !
http://
www.petitionpublique.fr/PeticaoVer.aspx?pi=P2012N22006

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A visit to wolf dogs

     

      Wolf dogs (or wolfshund) is one of the most rare and mysterious breeds of dogs. It’s rather hard to call them “pets”. However, a wolf dog can be the most reliable, clever, brave and tender four-legged friend.

      We were invited  by a breeder of wolf dogs (Chekhoslovatskiy volchak) , whose farm is situated not far from Moscow. Breeding of these dogs is under particular control. The blood of puppies of each litter is to be  tested on the proportion of wolf and dog blood, as wolf genes are very strong.

     Even very young wolf dogs are extremely dynamic and are able to jump over a two meter high fence easily. They need at least two walks, three hours each.

About the title "Gelios Dogs"

A few words about the title “Gelios Dogs” .

For quite a long time my daughter  encouraged me to open a blog about dogs. “You know dogs, you spend a lot of time walking them, training them, communicating with them. Why not make a blog about them?”-  she moved on her undisputable arguments. It was my daughter who suggested the title “Gelios Dogs”. Perhaps, it sounds nice. However, why use such an unexpected link between an ancient Greek god and our pets?  

I believe that nothing happens just by chance. And my daughter’s strange idea for the title emerged not by chancre. It seems the reason for it can be found deep in our minds. Gelios – the god of the sun, which gives energy. What main role do dogs play in our lives? Do we hunt with them? Not many of us. Do they defense our sheeps or cows. I doubt it. We need our dogs because they love us, they support us, they fully give us their hearts. And it gives us a lot of living energy.

Such an understanding of the title can be treated with a good humor. However, if one thinks… may be there is a sense in it.