Nico - Rhodesian Ridgeback, Dog (3 Years)

Quite agree Phil I love reading about Nico, Denzil & Jazz's (to name three) progress & the efforts their owners are making to integrate them into their homes, these are the lucky dogs...we have all had problems with our pooches over the years & hopefully we can all help each other & learn from these experiences on the forum.

As i'm typing this, Nico is kicking off big time because he's not getting his own way! It's funny, he behaves just like a child that can't get its own way. He's not allowed on the sofa, but he thinks he should be. He's been told off, then he waited a second and grabbed some paper to rip up!! Delinquent!! I definately think we'll have to be more firm with him - he seems to be getting away with too much with two members of the family, but it just shows that if one person doesn't stick to the rules, progress stops.

Having said that, I got Nico to lay down and stay this morning, while I went into the kitchen and he did it! Normally he gets up and barges the kitchen door with his nose, but today he didn't! I also got him to lay down and stay in the heel position (I was beside him instead of infront telling him what to do) which i'm pleased about - baby steps, but they're in the right direction!!

I agree its great to read how the dogs and their new owners are getting on (even if you haven't met them). You made me a couple of times, we have a family member who doesn't stick to the rules too

My parents refer to this forum as Nico's fan club and i'm instructed to 'update his public' !!

Yesterday he went to the vets because he's got diarrhoea and his poo has a been a bit dodgy since we got him, despite us putting him on James Wellbeloved food. The vet says it's a bacterial infection, so he's on some tablets at the moment. BUT, she was so impressed with him! She's seen him once before, and she couldn't get over how much he'd changed - she said he was like a different dog!

We asked if we could take Nico to the vets just to be weighed and to get him used to the place so that he doesn't get overexcited, and they agreed that it was a good idea and they're more than happy for us to take Nico. The vet also wants us to keep stroking and touching him so that he gets used to people touching say, his back legs, rather than just the normal doggy stroking places, so that he doesn't freak out if the vet has to examine him.

Eek, Nico's in the dog house now - he's just brought in a load of mud from the garden, just as Mum had finished hoovering.

Hi Jackie,
You're doing so well with the training, and are going to reap rewards for your efforts.

A really good way of getting dogs used to being handled all over is to dry them off after every walk, and take it really slowly between the toes and paws (it's important to do this when the snow comes, because dogs can get frostbite between their toes). It's so funny, because even the most fidgety, mouthy dogs I have fostered finally succumb and actually run into the conservatory now to be dried off, even if they're not wet. If at first they're a little bit wary, then I make a bit of a game out of it, but keep calling them back and rubbing them with the towel, a bit at a time. I also make sure that when the dog is relaxed, usually lying down, I pick up their paws and pretend to inspect them. Again, sometimes they will try to mouth your hand, but persistence really pays off, and lots of praise. Phoebe is hilarious, because she knows the drill after our walks, and jumps up on the bench and offers her first paw, then when I've finished and say, "Other one" she gives me that one, and then I say "Turn around", and she offers her back legs. It's such a nice way to bond with the dog too.

Brilliant tip, thanks! Do you have any advice for dogs eating their own poo? Nico's been doing it and we're not sure if it's because he was harshly house trained so he clears up the 'evidence'? He's super clean inside and hasn't had a single accident.

and it even has it's own name - Coprophagia.

Here's a website that gives some sound advice - Coprophagia

Ah, great, thanks.

We're feeding Nico on James Wellbeloved because we thought it was one of the best, but after reading some reviews on that website, i'm not so sure. Some owners have complained of their dogs having excessive flatulence, excessive drinking and hyperactivity which Nico has...Does any one know of any other hypoallergenic foods?

I am a very firm believer in a raw diet for dogs. I know a lot of people will not agree with me on this one, but I just don't like feeding my dogs hard food.

I have used a product called Duck for nearly a year now. Click Here for Duck website The downside is that it comes from Belgium.

It is frozen raw food, with no artificial additives - the only preservatives are the freezing process. As the food is 50% minimum raw meat, there is no need to feed huge quantities. I have put all the foster dogs on it, and have seen massive improvements straight away. The most stunning was Baz - he absolutely stank to high heaven with his flatulence, and within 24 hours it was completely gone. The other thing about feeding a raw diet is picking up after the dog. No smell, not masses and masses of it, really quite dry and easy to pick up, etc. They drink a lot less water too - most drinking it to hydrate the awful dry food they've just consumed. The other thing I noticed about Baz was the turnaround in his behaviour. I think he is actually sensitive to E numbers and quite hyperactive. He's very chilled now. We also noticed that although when he went for 40 hours to his new home, they mixed hard food with the Duck Complete that I had given them to feed him, despite me telling them to change his diet gradually, and his first poo when he got back nearly made me keel over with the smell, and it was really 'fluffy'. Just horrible!

I pay £14.50 for a 8kg box of Duck Complete. To feed both Phoebe and Baz it costs me £1.45 a day - 600g for Baz (he's 25kgs) and 200g for Phoebe (she's 10kg). I actually had to drop Phoebe's amount by 100g because she started to gain weight. I'm keeping a close eye on Baz's weight because I might be feeding him a bit too much. They give you guidelines that just need fine tuning depending on the level of activity. It isn't the cheapest food, but it isn't the most expensive either. The only problem is availability and storage - I can only buy 2 boxes at a time because it fills my freezer.

I give the dogs a raw chicken wing after every meal to clean their teeth. I have to say that Phoebe's teeth are absolute sparklers, and she has no tartar, although she is only four and a half.

There are other raw meat diets on the market. It's worth trying one for a short time, because you will see the difference very quickly.

Thanks Ria. I told Mum about it, but she's reluctant to try him on raw food, because of expense - he needs 600g a day so that might add up to a fair amount. He's on some antibiotics at the moment, so we'll see if they help his pooh situation. If not, we'll shop around for dry food and ask our vet and trainer what they'd recommend.

Quick question regarding Nico's background. Do you know if Nico came from a violent home or one where there was a lot of 'domestics'? We don't mean was he hit, because he seems too steady for this, but there was an incident today. Nico was standing in the way of the computer, so I tilted the chair to sit down, but the chair fell back onto four legs and made the tiniest noise, and Nico completely freaked out. He ran to mum, clearly frightened in a way that wasn't in proportion to the chair's noise and was restless for quite a while.

Then later, Mum and I were watching tv and Nico was asleep on the floor between us when he jumped up, frightened as if he'd been hurt, but nothing had happened. There were no noises, nothing to startle him, but he was clearly frightened by something. He even tried to climb onto the sofa with me, and I mean, literally he was over the top of me trying to sit on my lap. He's never done this before - if he's being naughty or trying to get a reaction, he waits until we've left the room to do it. It's not putting us off him in any way, in case that's a worry for you, but we'd just like to know so that we can stop anything that Nico might think is threatening.

So that this isn't too much of a negative post, i've attached a picture of Nico with his best friend, Leonard

Wow big tough guy! That's certainly dented his street cred..lovely photo & good to see Nico so relaxed....I know nothing of his history, but my own girl Jess is a background unknown rescue & although steady most of the time now, she does have her moments ..men in baseball caps, an unfamiliar noise on the TV, raised voices in the street all sometimes reveal a frightened girl..& occasionally when she's asleep she will give a really sad sort of quiver & deep shudder & then jump up as if something has woken her with a start.

I suppose we will never really know what has happened in previous homes but from my experience the memories do seem to fade with time & now 1 year on she just seems to have completely relaxed & takes 99% of life in her stride.

I'm sure Nico is responding to your love & guidelines really well, he certainly looks a different boy & with Leonard between his paws looks ready to forget his past life!!!!It's a lovely photo.

Hi Jackie, Nico spent alot of time alone in a small flat.....this was his life as far as we know.....i will have an ask about tomorrow, probably be best if we could ring the owner and find out more specific details to help you8) .....be back asap @)

By the way the photo is beautiful.....helps so much to see that there are happily ever afters....Thankyou...it means alot : ) x

Thanks for replies. We're just a bit worried that we might be inadvertadly doing something that his previous owners were doing that's setting him off. Mum and I are taking him for a tour of the village later, so i'll try and get some pics of him doing his recall

Loving "The trials and tribulations of Nico."You're doing so well with him,it's a joy to read.

Hi i posted on here a couple of days ago....am still tryin to trace the guy who had nico originally....i saw a few notes that said he was too big for the second owners 4 year old boy and kept knocking him over...to be honest he could quite easily have done that with his tail lol...word on the ground is that he was left alone in a small flat from a young age and for very long hours,,,this is definetly not good for a baby dog especially as they grow up alone and afraid ...goodness knows what noises he heard with no-one to reassure or any company for hours....but i shall keep looking for that guys number to give you some hope of finding out what if anything he could have specifically been afraid of and why....: ) x:idea:

Thanks for helping, we really appreciate it. We're making progress with Nico - on one walk he walked to heel for 85% of it and for the remaining 10% he was running loose with a long (10m) lead. The other 5% was him trying to pull, but hey, it's progress! Yesterday wasn't as good - lots of growling and barking at us and pulling, but we can't expect miracles. I did make a video of him walking to heel and his recall, but I deleted it by mistake:oops: I'll make another one and hopefully you'll be dazzled by how well he's doing.

I'm sure we will & by all the hard work you are putting into Nico..it is a fantastic feeling when those small steps become the norm. I went to another training lesson today with a different group of dogs & Jess tried to be brave, it was good to see that she had the confidence not to bark & flee from them, but in another way just showed we still have a ways to go before she is 100% confident. But I was so proud of her as I am sure you are of Nico.

Nico still doesn't know how to interact with other dogs. He badly wants to play and interact, he just doesn't know how to. Kevin (trainer) said it was good that Nico always sniffs the other dog's behind, but he still gets too boisterous. The last training session we went to, he was firmly put in his place by Zeb, the trainer's dog. Nothing spiteful or nasty from Zeb, just a 'don't do that!' response, and Nico, the big brave dog he is, ran back to Mum's feet!! We're hoping that with interactions like that, Nico will learn what is right and what is wrong, and then hopefully Zeb and Nico can be friends. There were only two other dogs at the last training session, a nervous collie called Fizz and a Jack Russell with little-man-syndrome called Sid, but this Saturday there should be four others.

t takes a long time for them to learn the etiquette to play Zeb sounds like a perfect school master Jess's was Rogue an enormous Bernese mountain dog, who she still loves but he has taught her to be respectful, sometimes lol...some days you just can't win & then she too hides behind my legs if she get's a telling off...these big girls & boys are such wimps!!!

It makes us laugh too, especially as Zeb is only a Springer Spaniel and tiny compared to Nico. He's only had two group training sessions, and we can already see an improvement in him. He's still a bit whacky when we first get there, but he does settle down when it's 'work' time.

The first time I didn't go to training, and Nico apparently did brilliantly! Kevin (trainer) was very pleased with him, and one dog owner (Paula) was amazed at his progress. She said she can definately see the change in him, and it's only his third group session. They worked on walking to heel, sits/downs and stays, recalls and group play. Another dog has joined the group, a 6 month Doberman named Paddy and a German Shepherd will be joining later. Nico didn't get to play with Paddy as he's too boisterous and needs to learn correct doggy greeting behaviour, otherwise he could scare the other dogs, but it seems to be going well. He went to Mote Park today with Mum and Dad, and did well there too. At first he was a little overwhelmed, which means barking and growling and trying to get at everything, but then he just chilled out and watches the ducks and swans for a while. He did get irritated by a Staffie, but only because it ran under him and started yapping, which Nico was not happy about, but nothing bad happened. We always take a bottle of water to squirt if anything gets out of hand, but luckily most people seem to realise that Nico's just acts like a bit of an idiot sometimes, but it lovely underneath.

My aunt's coming to visit soon, and last time Nico kicked off for about two minutes, then Donna had him sitting for treats which was amazing! Nico then just curled up and went to sleep (brilliant guard dog ). Luckily Donna takes on board what we say about Nico and does what we do with him, instead of doing something different which would just confuse him. She's been instructed to bring treats and wellies for a marathon walk around the village, which will hopefully tire him out.

Nico's currently wandered off to his bed (double sized duvet) and has curled himself up in it. I'll try and get a picture soon - he looks like a completely different pooch from the mouthy, mannerless dog we picked up in September. Won't be long until we've had him three months, and we all struggle to remember what we used to do before he came along!

Thought it was about time that you all had an update on Nico. We've had the Christmas tree up for about a week now and Nico's only taken a couple of decorations off, but we manage to get them back quite quickly and now he's leaving it alone. We thought he'd have had it over by now, but the novelty soon wore off!!

Training is going brilliantly. It's still a case of two steps forward, one step back, but compared to what he was like, it's a massive improvement. What makes it even better is that other people have noticed as well. Another couple at the training ALWAYS comment on how beautiful Nico is and they say he's like a completely different dog from the first time they saw him in November. The class only has two big dogs, a German Shepherd who's a bit nervous and Nico, a greyhound, collie, jack russell and a norfolk terrier but we went to an earlier class one Saturday which had several German Shepherds and Nico was completely fine! Plus, we'd missed two classes beforehand due to work, and the Shepherds were quite barky but Nico, after growling a bit, just walked away with Dad. Last week he was out on a group walk with the rest of the class and there was no scraps at all - Nico did want to play with Zeb (trainer's dog) but Zeb wasn't interested so Nico just ran off. Before, he wouldn't have done this - he would have stayed and pestered until Zeb put him in his place. It was lovely to hear the other owners who's dogs couldn't go on the group walk talking about Nico - they kept saying how beautiful and happy he was, because he was running around everywhere and the other dogs couldn't really be bothered. Bobby the greyhound's owners even asked what he was like at home and seemed geuinely interested in his progress, which is so lovely because it means that it's not us looking through rose tinted glasses, he really is wonderful! He's slimmed down a bit and looks very sleek and powerful when he's off chasing leaves. Oh, and he no longer barks when he's left in the car when we go over for the debrief session after each 15min activity, but lays down and chills out. He also did some agility (tunnel and board) and seemed to like it and was quite good at it as well.

My aunt was down for a couple of hours and Nico was fine, if a little over-excited for a bit. He settled, and just acted like her armchair was empty. He did try to push his luck with her a tiny bit by mouthing, but Donna just dealt with it and Nico settled. She also kept saying how beautiful his face was.

So, Christmas. Normally each person's presents are put in the armchair/sofa to be opened at leisure, but with Nico I think this might have to be rearranged. He's got a real thing for shredding paper and taking things he shouldn't, but hopefully he'll be distracted by his own presents! So far he's got a present from my aunt and her rescue Dalmation Flash, a present from us, and a present from Zeb the trainer's dog! Plus, the fire'll be on so he might just flop down there like he is now. He'll be getting a very long walk to tire him out Christmas morning...OH, and, Nico's recall is now so successful, we let him off lead completely and he dashes around then runs in between us so that everyone can admire his agile movements! We also, fingers crossed, seem to have sorted out his dodgy tum by mixing James Wellbeloved with a bit of gluten-free dog meat, so no more diarrohea!! And to get rid of that image, Kevin (dog trainer) has said that we have a very intelligent dog, so brains & beauty!

What a lovely report to read. I'm sure you're all going to have a lovely Christmas. We've just told Ben he's our best Christmas present ever ( although we had him in June ! )There's nothing more comforting than having a good walk and then all curl up by the fire. Enjoy Christmas, you've worked so hard with him and I'm so glad you let everyone know how well he's doing.

Wow what a long way your boy has come...a super report & doesn't the training make a difference to your dog & also I find to me, it gives you so much confidence to deal with any things that crop up now & then...We too have group walks they are just the best fun, especially when you can show off with your beautifully behaved boy or girl.....I hope you all have a great Christmas..providing the tree & pressie's survive!! All the best for 2012 it seems that you don't have too much more to do with Nico other than just enjoy him now,but it will be lovely to read of your adventures

We're taking Nico to his training session tomorrow, and he'll be mixing with bigger dogs eg Shepherds and I think a Newfoundland!! He did well with three shepherds, even when one started barking and growling at him, so it'll be interesting to see how he does with new dogs.

Haha, yes, Nico has come a LONG way but there's still plenty for him to learn ie that 'leave it' actually means leave it, and not pick it up and run around with it! There's two problems we have with him at the moment - jealousy and him not realising his own strength. This morning Dad was hugging me and Nico did not like it at all because he was getting ignored. Our previous Ridgeback, Pepsi, was completely the same but instead of being grumpy and barking and growling to get attention when this happened, she'd simply push your arm up and put her head under it as if to say 'here I am!' and it was fine. This is bearing in mind that I was about four when we first got her and she was the same size and strength roughly as Nico, but she was completely soppy and there was no chance of her accidently hurting me. Nico on the other hand gets a little snarly but we think this was because he can't tell the difference yet between good attention and bad attention (eg when he's getting told off)...we'll work on it, to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. It's sometimes easy to forget that we've only had him 3 months - he's fitted in so well that it feels like we've had him forever.

Nico's presents aren't wrapped yet, and nobody's really mentioned how we'll organise xmas morning, but I imagine Dad will insist he's in while we unwrap pressies, because, well...Nico's got him wrapped round his little claw!!

Mum's dream for Nico is that he'll be so calm and behaved that we'll be able to take him to public places, such as the Kent County Show and he'll be able to walk to heel on a slack lead, and be completely comfortable with strangers walking around him. I think it's achievable, so that'll be our goal for 2012. All the best to everyone that's followed Nico's story, and I hope 2012 is a happy one for you all and your dogs. xxx