The REAL Marley and Me!!!: A dog owner's best friend!

This little red can of compressed air is my best friend.......

About a year or so ago I got told off by the headmaster at school for Marley's barking! He said he had, had complaints from the neighbours! So off I go to my local pet shop in search of a soft muzzle to put on him whilst tied up at school to prevent the barking! Now I am all for reward training in the form of treats and clicks etc. but as intelligent as my lovely Marley is I generally don't have the time of patience for it!

So the lovely lady in the shop, who is very knowledgeable about all things dog related, said that due to Marley's giant size, if I were to put a muzzle on him people would assume he was dangerous! And then she brought out the red can! I am not joking it almost glowed with a halo! It is like heaven in a bottle!

All it is is compressed air that when you press then nozzle it makes the sound of a tyre compressor (is that what it's called? You know what I mean the thing you put in your tyres to blow them up!). You absolutely do NOT spray it AT the dog but merely in the vicinity when they are acting out an unacceptable behaviour such as barking or pulling on the lead! The idea is that the sound is so unpleasant to a dog that they associated it with unwanted behaviour and therefore do not repeat the behaviour for fear of it producing the sound!

IT IS A MIRACLE IN A BOTTLE!!!!!!!

So the first behaviour I wanted to correct was the barking outside school! 2 sprays later and he has never barked at school again!!!!!! The next behaviour I wanted to correct was the stealing of food which is Marley's favourite past time as you know! Now the problem with this is that Marley has these little invisible mirrors attached to the top of his head, so when you creep round the door in an attempt to catch in the act so you can activate the spray, he can see you so stops what he's doing, so I have had to give up on this one and just hide food at all times!!!!!!

The next behaviour was over vigorous play with Busta! Poor Busta was ending up with a sore mouth from all the saliva from Marley and little nicks on his ears! There is never any aggression or malice in Marley's play but it was getting a bit much, so literally 2 sprays later and all was well!

The final unwanted behaviour I wanted to address was pulling on the lead! It was getting beyond control at one point and after he had pulled me across a road whilst I had my brand new IPhone 4s in my hand which flew into the road and smashed AND after I had finished standing in the middle of the path IN PUBLIC sobbing like a little girl, I decided something needed to be done! I spoke to my vet who said that she had seen people with broken hands from being pulled along by their dogs and she advised me to invest in a canny collar! This collar has a soft strap that goes over their nose which tightens when they pull to discourage them. Did this work NOOOOOO!!

So after several months of trying my best (treat training never worked) I went to my trusted pet shop to ask for their advice and ask if there was a different type of collar I could use. The lovely girl there said there were many but why didn't I give the spray a go? So she told me what to do and as we (Marley, Busta, Belinda and I left the shop, 2 sprays when he pulled on the lead and he never did it again! It was unbelievable Bee could not believe it! Suddenly he was walking next to me on a loose lead, it was like a dream and so much more enjoyable for both me AND him!

So there is was all his bad behaviour solved ...... until his operation which meant him not being able to be walked so when he was eventually allowed out on the lead last week we were back to the pulling problem again! So I went to pet shop bought a new can of spray and hey presto ONE spray and NO pulling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!