Meredith,

I'd be happy to talk about deshedding products on another thread. I would rather keep this one on topic.

Cheers!

Melissa

So back on topic..
He is hot, and this I think is the main problem.
He has low food drive, experiment with some of the ideas for treats.
Try and develop his tug drive...that is going well...until he gets hot.. sigh.
Work on the obedience, tons of 5 min sessions through the day with what ever works, at this time that is ear scratches.
Look into working outside and getting a kiddie pool.
Put ice in the pack bladders.
I'm keeping track of when he is energized...mostly it's after he has been outside and cooled off. Morning is good too.

Any more great ideas?

Edited by Connie Sutherland (03/23/2010 03:47 PM)
Edit reason: *

Thanks, that's a bunch of great info.
I have the vid, but haven't watched it yet.
I'll do that now.
And the other ideas too.
Thanks!!!!!

My pup on the right had SUPER low food drive when she was 6 months. Now at 4 she'll do anything for a treat.

The whole roast pork joint (cooked) was a turning point... I think just seeing it makes them salivate... Makes me salivate just thinking about it...

Anyway! Everything above is good advice.

My pup gets bored or frustrated quite easily. So rewarding simple behaviours helps her 'stay interested'.

Keeping to a routine helps too, e.g. morning walk, training, then breakfast.

As to being hot, I think it's tough for dogs to learn if there are - my dogs were in China at 36+ deg. Celsius -so we would train them indoors (air conditioned) then when they learnt the behaviours, we'd use super nice treats outside just to reward (not teach them).

Other than that, maybe try training when the sun goes down... or at night.

Eddie's packs came today..
I'll try to get a pix of them and post it.
I filled the water bladders up with ice and water and put them on him........he did great!
It really helped. He is feeling much cooler with the ice packs held next to his sides.
I think that the low food drive is due to an upset tummy.
He isn't eating enough, and is seriously under weight.
Its a problem we have been dealing with for a long time.
It turns out that he had a heavy worm load from being out in the fields...so we wormed him with ivomec and gave him the tape worm meds too.
I'm going to send off a fecal sample to the vet to have it tested.
We have him on a bland diet of chicken and rice.
He isn't eating much of that, so I'm going to up the chicken to rice ratio. and gradually add more rice.
I will stay with this for 2 weeks and see what happens.
As soon as he is gaining weight and eating reasonably, we are going to raw.
He is used to being supplemented with raw, when he wasn't eating, I gave him the last pig vertebra we had, he eats these with gusto and is used to them.
He chewed the meat off, and buried it, then ate the bone! Whats up with that? didn't eat the meat. (from our farm pigs, so I know the meat was good.)