Travelling Pets

We recently traveled with our Hooman mum n dad on the ferry to take a little holiday at the beach in costa brava. This is our favourite place in the world, dogs are allowed to run play and swim on the beach all day long. We love it!

Anyway, we want to tell you about our journey home to Majorca as it was really different to normal .

We came back with Balearia from Barcelona to Alcudia and we got to use the new dog friendly cabin on the boat. So we didn’t have to go into a kennel we actually got to stay on the cabin with the hoomans. All the staff on board were so kind to us, they took us to our cabin so we didn’t get lost . Our mum said it was so great as it was a normal cabin but they put down a plastic pee pee tray just incase we needed to go! But we are good girls and didn’t need to use that.

They gave us a gift bag with treats inside , we ate all of those before bedtime. We went straight to sleep and the journey home was so nice al together with the family. Very early in the morning , mum said at the crack of dawn, we arrived to Alcudia. We got into our car again and drive home. Easy peasy, best journey ever for us from Barcelona. Happy dogs ??

For more information on the ferry journey's : https://helpcenter.balearia.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360007991497-Pet-friendly-cabins-

Remember Lazy Beach Days of Summer: With Romy

Timothy Collins sent this wonderful story in during the summer months of his visits to the beach accompanied by this beach loving cat Romy. A wonderful reminder of the lazy days of summer and I’m sure you will love reading about him too..
“Romy is a resident of Palma Nova in the municipality of Calvia. He is the pet cat of Jose, ‘caretaker/porter’ of Sun apartments, right next to McDonald’s.. Romy is very much at home on the beach, and even appears to have his own Lilo and sun brolly. Romy often makes his way over to say hello to us, as we live in the apartment block. He often shares our beach blanket, sprawling himself out for cuddles and play.

We say of Romy that the beach is his back garden, and the sun bathers, his guests. Lately he paid a little visit, immediately taking a liking to our newly acquired air bed, spending twenty minutes sat surveying the crowds of gathered sun bathers, making sure all where behaving nicely, and respectfully observing social distancing, before returning to our blanket and remaining there a further hour and a half indulging himself in the now obligatory cuddles and play, and even calmly agreeing to model the latest in kitty cat shades.” In these difficult times, when not an awful lot of news is cheerful, I’m grateful to Timothy for sending in this little story, watch out for Romy on an Autumn beach walk.

Reward "Nothing" - By Joachim Sommer

A basic principle in modern dog training is to REWARD the desired behaviour (i.e. what we want) and to ignore (if possible) the undesired behaviour (i.e. what we don’t want, for example jumping, barking, leash pulling etc.)
One of the hardest things for many handlers is to recognise (and reward) when the dog apparently “does nothing” albeit this is actually exactly what we want.
Somehow, intuitively, we want to see the undesired behaviour and react (some say “correct”) it by communicating to the dog they are “doing it wrong”. This is called “set up to fail” and most of the time leads to suppression of the undesired behaviour.
A way better solution is to set the dog up to succeed by presenting them with the situation in a way they can actually cope without giving us the undesired behaviour and rewarding them for this. This will actually lead to a change in behaviour because we changed the dog’s perception of, and thus attitude towards, the situation in a low stress environment.
Sounds all too theoretical?
Here is an example:
When walking Fluffy down a quiet street in the neighbourhood Fluffy reacts with a dog barking behind a fence (on our side of the street) by barking back and lunging at them.
The next day we anticipate Fluffy’s behaviour and walk on the OTHER side of the street where we find Fluffy walks past the barking dog in a relatively calm fashion.
NOW is the time to PRAISE Fluffy and reward them for example with their favourite treat, by playing tug of war or do whatever Fluffy loves most.
Then, in the future, we gradually reduce the distance to the barking dog always rewarding Fluffy when he is calm until Fluffy happily passes them on “their” side of the road.
So we successfully CHANGED Fluffy’s behaviour by consistently rewarding Fluffy for literally “doing nothing”
Now this may appear as a longwinded process but you will be surprised how quickly and reliably your Fluffy will adapt.
If we have a reactive dog we should walk them “consciously”, often engaging with eye contact, anticipating stressful situations and acting (for example by turning around or creating distance) rather than reacting, and also heavily reward them when they can cope!

Frankie is Home

Earlier this week a one year old golden retriever called Frankie went missing presumed stolen. Unseen, he had followed his owner Paul Whitelaw’s car down their lane and to the main road and was seen being picked up by someone in a white van. The family and social media launched an island wide search for Frankie and he either got away or was deemed to hot to handle after the brilliant response of everyone involved. The phone call by someone claiming they had found Frankie wandering on the road outside of Puntiro 2 miles away, came on Saturday in response to a poster put up earlier in the day. So 49 very long hours after he disappeared, he is back home again. I hear Frankie is sleeping alot, and eating well, he must be exhausted after his adventure. All of us here at the Bulletin are delighted at the news. Welcome home Frankie.

If you have any pet related stories or news to tell, or want to share your pet pictures please do contact me on cfuller@majorcadailybulletin.es