21 weeks - Basket case

Kili's basket muzzle arrived this week. It had sort of slipped my mind until surgery became a possibility for her ongoing medical issues. She's still small enough and has a short enough nose that she wouldn't have a huge, ridiculous cone, however, looking forward into the future I prefer a basket muzzle and stool guard for my hounds. The length of cone needed for their noses means a neck diameter that is too large to fit their necks. It's just awkward. And of course I rationalized that the hounds were used to their muzzles anyway. Well, not when you start with a puppy who has never had a muzzle before!

I am not sure how they train the greyhounds on the farm/track to accept the basket muzzle. Maybe they just throw them on nice and tight and eventually the dogs give up when they can't get them off. Or maybe they do it with positive reinforcement. I have no idea. Positive reinforcement has always worked for me though, so that's how we're going about it.

The following is a video after a couple of sessions working with the new muzzle. The first few times I didn't have the strap done up and didn't leave it on her. I just wanted her to stick her face in it and get treats. Then as she was getting comfortable with that I did up the strap and again just waited for her to stick her face in. Then I started popping the strap over her ears for short periods of time. That's about as far as we've gotten so far.