This is probably of limited interest to non-dog people and possibly still less to non-flattie people but over 40 flatcoated retrievers descended on a tiny Hertfordshire village on Sunday at the home of their breeder. We all went for walkies and had a lovely time. Most of these dogs are Fergus's extended family, including some from his litter. His grandma Sonja graced us with her company, but sadly left this life the following day.
All dogs were well-behaved, of course, and got on well. When you have a dog this size, especially if you live in a more built-up area, careful training is an absolute necessity. People are amazed when I tell them that I took the late Oscar to training every week for ten years before we moved to Hong Kong. I've doubled up on that with Fergus. He already has his KC Silver Good Citizen Award and I take him to gundog and agility training most weeks.
The approach to dog training has changed so much since Oscar's early days, and now we use reward-based gentle training and natural behavioural cues rather than imposing our will on them with toughness and commands. It is really hard work, especially for the first few months, but I think that it builds up trust between dog and human and makes for happier, more confident dogs. This gentleness training also carries over into human relationships.
Now, my Fergus is in the middle of his adolescence so other dogs have started mounting him to show him who is boss. Luckily it doesn't happen often. I think Fergus gives off an air of self-confidence and bonhomie (bondoggie?) It's natural behaviour, of course, but I don't want pre-emptive retaliatory mounting to become ingrained as a habit as I think it probably did with Oscar, so I discourage this sort of "training" from other dogs. I was told by the human of a dog who was persistently giving Fergus a repeated seeing-to on Sunday that this was because their dog sensed a weakness in mine. No, there is no weakness. I fact I see the lack of toxic masculinity as a strength.
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