Two weeks after Toby arrived I was getting to the end of my tether. He was totally and utterly hyper active. He didn't stop for breath until he was forced to. The arrive of a cage from a friend was a welcome relief as at least it meant even if he was still going strong when we were flagging and collapsing we could put him into his cage for a rest ... for us.
The worst thing was the jumping up and biting - he wanted us to play and he wasn't going to take no for an answer. My clothes were in rags, I had nip bites all over and Jasmin was getting very wary of him. So in desperation I decided we either had to find a trainer or he would have to go.
I called around and found a lovely lady called Patsy. When she answered the phone I just said help! and she laughed. She came around and showed us how to time out Toby. It smacks of Supernanny tactics but does seem to work. She told us to leave Toby's lead on even whilst in the house so we could grab him quickly rather than trying to get to his collar - this is just a temporary measure for a couple of weeks. Then time him out when doing something he shouldn't by placing him on the other side of a door for 10 seconds whilst we hold the lead onthe other side. This isn't meant as instruction for training so please don't try it without full supervision as there is more to it than I've written here.
Anyway this was working quite well and the nipping and jumping was subsiding. One morning when he was particularly excited, I had to time him out 4 or 5 times. The last time I was stood on one side of the door and Toby was on the other, I didn't hear the normal whine or movement but continued for the count of 10 holding the lead. Opened the door and Toby was no where to be seen.
He'd bitten through the lead and taken off. In 10 seconds he'd gone through the lead and left me standing there holding the end of the lead behind a closed door.
No comments:
Post a Comment