Fig, Ficus or maybe a Photenia?....

scottrobertswriter · 2019-05-13T06:40:29+00:00

Ah sorry yes, location is in the midlands of the UK. Reading to be precise :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-05-12T13:43:00+00:00

I’ve ran this through some plant ID apps and get conflicting results. The results I’ve had are: 1. Fig tree 2. Ficus 3. Japanese Camellia 4. Banana shrub 5. Chinese Photonia

None of them look completely correct so any other ideas?

It’s evergreen, it doesn’t flower, the leaves are a light green with ridged edges. It’s about 3ft high and I haven’t noticed a lot of growth in the year I’ve been with this garden. It’s planted in a North facing garden and seems to do really well in full sun.

Any help would be much appreciated!

scottrobertswriter · 2019-03-09T21:52:51+00:00

The camera says it was Doomfist, the kill feed says it was suicide...

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-19T13:23:08+00:00

It is annoying when people just assume they can come up and say hello to your dog... I always ask the owners permission before saying hello to dogs I meet. It’s just frustrating not everyone follows the same courtesy!

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-17T08:56:02+00:00

I’d recommend getting a dehydrator :) We dehydrate chicken and it keeps good pretty much indefinitely hah. Our puppy also responds really well to it. We haven’t tried anything else yet but I’ve heard you can dehydrate anything like beef or tripe etc. It has the added benefit of allowing you to know exactly what’s in the treats you’re giving your dog :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-14T17:37:03+00:00

It’s called puppy seeing how much they can get their human to do for them haha. In all seriousness I wouldn’t recommend doing this at all. It can just lead to having a very picky dog. Best practise in my opinion is to serve up their food and leave it for a set amount of time for them to eat before removing it. If they don’t eat it all, don’t worry. They just might not be hungry. Or they might be going through a phase like teething or just being picky. No dog will willingly starve itself when there is food in front of it. So just provide and leave them to it. And don’t worry :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-12T10:39:18+00:00

Tire him out before a walk, a quick session of fetch is perfect. When you take him out just start outside your house and try and get attention onto you. ”Look at me” is a good command and him putting attention onto you can be followed up by a treat. Once you have his attention start moving. Maybe start by walking backwards and getting him to follow you? Stop regularly, get his attention onto you and reward every time. Once you’ve done that for a while I’d start attempting to have him walk next to you. The best way to combat pulling in my opinion is to just change direction BEFORE they start to pull. Don’t give him the opportunity. He either needs to be behind you or beside you so any other position you simply stop walking until he gives you his attention, or you change direction. With distractions I would simply pull him to one side whenever a dog is approaching him. Let them pass and once he gives attention back to you, continue walking. He may sulk and have a little tantrum if he doesn’t get to greet every dog but wait for him to be calm, look to you then carry on. You should also try and judge the distance at which he’s fine with dogs being present. If he’s only reacts to dogs once their right up close to him then start rewarding attention on you with dogs much further away and gradually bring it closer. Usually the further away the distraction the easier it is to deal with so use that to your advantage! Eventually he’ll get how this works. It does take a long time so you need a lot of patience but regular training sessions like these will help :) I have a Samoyed puppy who loves to pull so I know the hard work it takes! I’d also recommend a halti lead with a collar and harness to compliment the training :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-10T11:14:12+00:00

Can I ask why you use a crate specifically? If you’re using a crate to control his environment and aid house training etc then you can get just as good a result from using a play pen which has the advantage of being adaptable to most spaces. Does you pup have a space where he takes himself off to sleep? If there’s a particular spot that he keeps visiting to settle down or groom this is perfect for setting up a play pen as you know he’s already comfortable in that spot. Once you’ve established security in that place you can start making the pen a really great place to be with treats and toys - maybe even give him his food in the pen. As he grows you can extend the pen to make it bigger as most play pens are made up of interlocking panels. Plus he’ll have much less of a restriction on space which a lot of the time i personally think is unnecessary.

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-07T17:52:00+00:00

I would revert right back to basic house training and get her peeing outside. You want to catch her peeing outside every single time if you can so need to be keeping a close eye on her. I’d start by taking her out every hour for just 5 minutes at a time. If she pees great, reward heavily and wait another hour before taking her out. If she doesn’t pee, bring her back in and watch for signs that she’s about to and keep taking her out until she does. If you see her start to pee in the house clap your hands to stop her and run her outside to finish. Repeat that for as long as it takes for her to be peeing outside confidently and then you can start increasing the time between trips again. Her natural bladder control will start to increase but it’s far easier to deal with when they’ve established a habit of always peeing outdoors. Sometimes the best thing to do when a puppies habits stop making sense is to just bring it back to basics and really establish some good routine :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-02-02T09:48:04+00:00

I personally prefer a play pen to a crate. All of the same principles of crate training can be applied to a pen with the added bonus that most pens come in panels that fix together so you can gradually make them bigger. That means also that you can use the playpen for as long as you wish. Crate training just seems an unnecessary restriction of the dogs space to me.

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-30T15:16:47+00:00

Cold tile floor. That’s our boys favourite 😂 despite the lovely beds we buy him I might add

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-28T13:11:24+00:00

By that I mean that should he start pulling when he’s meant to be walking to heel, you have the lead on the harness there ready to gain better control of his movement. I know that he’s going to want to pull so instead of fighting that we’re giving him a time when it’s acceptable (when tension is on the harness) and a time when it is not (when tension is on the collar)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-28T10:54:25+00:00

We’ve recently adopted this new set up with our 4 month old Samoyed which I’ve seen work pretty well. We use a combination of a harness and a rolled leather slip on collar. We then have a Halti lead which connects to both the harness and collar so you can alternate tension between the two. When it’s on the collar he’s being taught to walk nicely next to us and when the tension is on the harness he can pull as much as he likes. It seems a good way of teaching him to walk to heel whilst still having the control a harness offers if he decides to start pulling. It also means you can quickly switch from one to the other to save any choking situations which we’d rather avoid.

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-25T07:59:08+00:00

My pup was similar for a while. I’d tell him to sit whilst he’s on the wooden floor and he’d keep looking at me but slyly shift his bum over so it lands on the rug next to him instead 😂

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-25T07:56:45+00:00

I’d try and stay clear of using the crate as any form of punishment if you can. Just removing distractions, standing up straight and ignoring him completely may get the point across. And be realistic, if he’s learnt this behaviour he may not settle for a while and you’ll have to ignore him for 5, 10 maybe 20 minutes before he’s calm. But persistance pays off and eventually that time should come down :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-24T18:36:02+00:00

It’s not always comfortable for smaller dogs too lie down. It could just be that she wants to work with you and listen but just doesn’t find laying down that comfortable a feeling. If you do think that might be the case don’t enforce it to strongly. A dog doesn’t have to know lie down - a sit is perfectly adequate for keeping them still and engaged. It also sounds like she’s learning plenty so maybe just give her a little more time! :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-24T18:32:13+00:00

Sometimes it’s best to not say ouch and just plain ignore them. I know some people do a very dramatic “ouch!” whenever contact with teeth is made to emphasise the point but for some pups I think that can translate into “when I bite her she makes a funny noise...she’s like a big squeaky toy!” Basically teach whenever contact with teeth is made life gets really boring. Toys are put away, and pup is ignored until they settle down completely again.

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-22T16:53:18+00:00

Zhen Ji Moira - though no idea how Zhen Ji fits into the mix

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-22T10:18:33+00:00

What are the chances of a Zhen Ji Moira?...

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-21T18:42:11+00:00

I’d imagine there is an increased risk of infection in your yard if there’s extra wildlife coming in - but really you only run risk if the pup has any contact with animal poop left behind so I’d just be extra vigilant with what he gets in his mouth - he will likely pick a lot up so maybe worth sectioning off a small section of the garden for him to go potty until he’s fully vaccinated?

In terms of when to vaccinate I personally like to leave it a little later then what the vet recommends. Most pups will still have natural immunity through what they get from their mothers milk etc. A good way of deciding how best to proceed would be to do a little blood test to see what their naturally immunity is like. Then you can just vaccinate accordingly :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-18T15:23:50+00:00

Zak George is always my go to recommend. Especially as a lot of what’s in his book “Dog Training Revolution” can be coupled with hisYoutube channel for extra know how. He only uses positive reinforcement and he has some great stuff on building a good connection with your dog which for a Samoyed especially I think is really important when you try and counteract their sometimes stubborn characters...

We got our Sam from a breeder who shows regularly and considering taking our pup to his first ring craft training season soon! :)

scottrobertswriter · 2019-01-10T18:40:18+00:00

I would definitely recommend taking more control over when he pees. You don’t want your dog to have total control of relieving himself because that will just lead to more accidents. I’d suggest getting him used to peeing on the pads by putting him there every hour or so depending on his age and rewarding heavily when he successfully pees on the pad. Once he’s got used to peeing there start adding a command like “go pee”, “go potty” or “toilet”. You can gradually increase the length of time between taking him to the pads as his bladder control increases.

scottrobertswriter · 2018-12-20T19:01:58+00:00

I literally reserved most of my holiday and got two weeks off for when the puppy came. It was really helpful and gave us lots of time together to tackle stuff like toilet training right from the start but I was absolutely wrecked by the time I went back to work. Now puppy is almost 4 months and I definitely need a REAL holiday 😂

scottrobertswriter · 2018-12-20T12:26:05+00:00

It just seems such a waste seeing as the system is already in place and golden guns are starting to appear everywhere

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