Jake's Progress

How, where, when

We’d been talking about getting a dog for a while. Gus was one of those children who passionately wanted a dog as a child, but her parents weren’t keen so it never happened. Rod liked dogs. In 2004, Gus had been part time for year and it seemed like the ideal time to add a dog into the family. Being earnest librarianly types, we researched things thoroughly. We decided an older lurcher from a rescue would suit us.

Several months of touring rescue centres at weekends followed. Just when we were giving up hope, Gus spotted the only non-barking dog in Edinburgh Dog & Cat Home and in August 2004 we bought home a skinny black and tan lurcher, about a year old, an unclaimed stray. Younger than we'd planned for, but otherwise, exactly what we had in mind.

We called him Jake because it seemed like a good name for a poacher’s dog, little realising that it’s one of the most popular names going for little boys. Hey ho.

Training

Jake has always behaved impeccably round the house. But we quickly realised that the only command he knew was sit. He couldn’t walk on the lead, had no recall. He loved to rough and tumble with other dogs, which of course can cause problems in the park. He didn’t know how to play with toys, and we had to teach him not to jump up and tug on our clothes or play-bite humans when we were outside. We took him to training classes run by a local dog behaviourist, where Gus first came across clicker training. Jake responded really well to the clicker, and Jake now has his bronze Good Citizen certificate. We experimented with a traditional obedience club, but it wasn’t really us.

Agility is more the thing – we joined an Edinburgh club and, a couple of years later, Jake is registered with the UK Kennel Club Activity Register, and we've started competing at Grade 1 (starters) . Great fun - and a few successes too!

Jake’s not perfect, what dog is? Although he’s usually fine with other dogs he won’t back down if he gets into a confrontation, so we’ve got better and better at reading dog body language and we try to avoid tricky situations before they arise.

What goes in, comes out

In his first year with us we had a terrible time trying to sort out Jake's digestive troubles. Sometimes he couldn’t make it through the night. If he could wake us up, he’d go in the garden, but more usually we’d find he’d been sick or shat on the carpet. Touchingly, he would try and dump near the toilet. Our excellent vet suggested we try an exclusion diet, so we started him on a regime of cooked pork and potatoes. The difference was startling. Laboratory tests showed he's allergic to chicken and fish and has an intolerance to wheat. Since then he’s been fed on a natural diet, a mix of raw bones and raw meat, a small amount of cooked potato or rice, and some cooked greens (not broccoli). He’s a lot calmer out and about, is very healthy and his coat looks great.

What a lot of work for a mutt from the Dogs Home. Was it worth it? Hell, yes!

Who are these imposters?



Jake really is Jake. He has a fancy Kennel Club name these days, but that's only for entering agility shows.

Gus Westward is a human female ... and it's a psuedonym. When we started this blog back in distant 2004, we weren't on facebook or myspace and it was the done thing to hide your real identity. Particularly when you were online a lot for work. And now I've been Gus so long I can't imagine being anyone else. It would be weird to use my real name.

Gus was my first pet (a golden hamster!) and Westward was the name of the street I lived on at the time.

Rod Derwent is also a pseudonym. Rod was the hamster, Derwent was the street ...

(Now I think I'd like to get a hamster to test my clicker training skills, but I fear Jake would like the hamster for his supper. When my nieces are a little older maybe I'll get them hooked on clicker training any small rodents they have as pets ...)

July 2008.