I wonder what "ordinary" people do for fun?

I had SO MUCH FUN this morning. After our last swimming lesson in the swim spa, I thought Syn had a good time. Turns out she DID have a good time. I gave her a shower and put on her life jacket. She trotted eagerly ahead of me into the room. I went in first and did some exercise, while she stood up on the step and watched me. Then I picked her up by the jacket and lowered her gently into the water (it's a big step over the edge of the pool to get in - think above-ground pool, so she can't get in by herself). There was a moment's hesitation while she tried to remember what the heck was going on, then she dived (figuratively) into the action. She was hustling for wiener bits, chasing my hand around, banking her turns, "running" really fast in the water to grab wieners and slowly to touch my hand here - here - and there.

We did a few minutes of "swim with handler" where she swam beside me while I walked, targeting my hand with her nose from time to time and getting more wieners.

Then I realized that one of the corner seats was 8 inches under the water - a perfect level for Syn to stand on. Small, slippery, but underwater far enough that she was not quite floating when standing on it. I put her on it, moved exactly as far away as I had when teaching her to jump from the Gator to the ground. asked her if she was ready, and then gave her the same cue to jump and come to me. Another moment's hesitation while she considered the ramifications of leaving a perfectly good perch for open water, she cheerfully launched, swam to me, and was amply rewarded. And again, and again, and again. She gave the same responses she did on the Gator (video on the left in the Movie Album - Water Work) - obviously wanting to jump into swimming, waiting for the cue, waiting... waiting... aaaand LAUNCH! Thinking about the years I spent getting Stitch to be happy about jumping into water - and the time I spent with Scuba, who jumped because I asked her to (though the Working Water Dog level, which requires a LOT of jumping off boats, was about her limit. By the time we got to Courier, she'd sort of run out of patience) - I am SO THRILLED with this happy beginning.

I put her out of the pool and continued to swim for a few minutes alone, while she again watched me with her paws over the edge. I got the definite impression that she would have come in if I had asked her to - and if it was physically possible.

I got a new big lens for my camera. I'm really excited about it.
Syn was about 50 feet away from me when I took these pictures.

There's another thing I'm excited about. Since our class 2 days ago where I was clicking Syn for starting to tug with me, she's been tugging harder and harder, bringing me toys for the first time to invite me to tug with her, and actually fetching them when I "win" and toss them. This morning I was actually able to pick all four feet off the floor momentarily by a tug toy.

This evening we went to our training room. I had the book, and I was ready to get serious in continuing on with Level Two behaviours. I started with a little bit of eye contact - though I know she's not good at it first thing. She'd rather do something active. Got up to about 8 seconds and then put her crate on the floor on its end and got her to go around it from about 5 feet away. Tough for her because of course we've been working on getting in her crate the last few days so she kept bumping her head on the screening, trying to find the door. Then she'd go around it still looking for the door, and I'd click when she got all the way around. I'm not sure she ever did realize she was getting clicked for going around the crate.

Then I put a pillow on the floor and shaped her until she realized it was a mat, then we did Go To Mat up to about 8 feet away. Then I started tossing it here and there around the room and shaping her again. As soon as she realized I was shaping her toward it each time, she knew what to do with it, but she could use a bit more experience with finding it more quickly. She was lying right on the pillow, and lying down each time she went to it. Once or twice she tentatively mouthed one corner of it, but I ignored that.

Then I went to the bathroom and got a hand towel to replace the pillow. Again it took her a moment to realize what I wanted her to do with it, then she ran right to it and lay down. And picked up one corner of it. She couldn't get it too high off the ground because she was lying on the rest of it. I clicked her for lying on it and tossed the treat. She ran off to get it, then went back and picked up the towel before she put her feet on it.

Ho-ho-hold everything. You're working on go to mat here, and your dog is trying to work on mouth behaviours.

Well, obviously I should ignore the mouthing and continue to work on go to mat.

Yeah, right! The be-all and end-all of her entire career as a service dog will be retrieving. I love retrieve games. Water work, obedience, and most of the other sports we'll play are centred around retrieving. It's exciting to me when a puppy first starts to retrieve. Now, granted, picking up the towel isn't retrieving, it's fetching (in my universe, a fetch is what dogs do when they're playing around, and a retrieve is a trained, specific behaviour) - but there's nothing wrong with fetching, and I LOVE IT. So I immediately abandon the whole go-to-mat idea and start clicking mouthing, lifting, and turning towards me. Oh, and I tied a knot in the (good, new matching-the-decor hand) towel so she wouldn't be stepping on it while she was trying to use her mouth on it.

We got some good stuff. She was going straight to it, picking it up, clearly waiting for a click (unless I moved my hand toward it), and I managed to shape her to bring it to me numerous times. Then I replaced it with a huge stuffed copy of Bo Obama (it was much bigger than she was when I got her, though smaller than she is now). She fetched that in increments too, though it was bigger, heavier, and more difficult than her towel. Zowie.

We finished up with some solo Come Game, fronts, finishes, and some heeling.

Not where I had planned to go, but a great session nonetheless.

To balance her obnoxious new won't-go-in-the-crate dance, Syn had a perfect training class this morning.

We did restrained recalls - she stayed with the holder with no fussing, and came like a bullet when I called.

We started jumping (well, Syn started jumps several weeks ago when we did going around a pole - a suitcase, actually - and then we added a jump to it) and moved quickly to going over two jumps to a food target, then over two jumps to a food target followed immediately by a long tunnel to a food target. This pointed out that I need to work on Look (look at something over there) as opposed to Watch (make eye contact). To do this beginning agility, I need both. Dang eh? I need to teach her NOT to watch me! My 4 month old puppy watches me so hard in class that she has trouble looking at food targets. Ahhh, she's broken now. MWA HA HA HA

While the class was doing a little Lazy Leash work, we did heeling.

When Stitch was a puppy, I was in a lot of pain. It was painful to bend over, to have any pressure on my hands, and any excess enthusiasm just looked like pain. I spent a lot of time working on getting Stitch to calm down as quickly as possible. I'm taking better drugs now. It still hurts, but not nearly as bad as it did. I WANT enthusiasm from Syn. I don't want to get too much control from her. So when we're practising heeling, she jumps. She's like a happy bunny. Walk-walk-jump-jump-jump-walk-jump-walk-walk-jump-jump. It's SO good. And all the time she's walk-jumping right on my left side. OK, it's not perfect heel position, but by golly for a 4 mo puppy, it's fantastic.

I did a few more walk-arounds with bait holding her still. It's still coming, but she still wants to jump (yes, jump) into heel position.

Worked on tug some more. She doesn't want to tug with me, but we started working on having her put her mouth on a soft toy, and I shaped her up to a pretty substantial pull, so I could "let her win" by pulling the toy away from me several times, and then reward her for it. She was starting to enjoy it.

She had a wonderful time in class, and then she asked to be lifted into the crate in the back of the car.

Syn's got The Rips. Stitch is standing in the middle of the living room while Syn goes over the couch, through the crate, over me, under Stitch, around the dog bed and up on the couch again. Her head is up, her tail is down, and she's on her 8th lap.

There's nothing like a shave, pedicure and bath to make a girl feel GOOOOOD.

I haven't had clippers on her since she was 7 1/2 weeks old, and that was pretty much a matter of holding on and trying to keep her occupied with dog food while taking the hair on her bum off. Just like the Training Levels, though, the more you work on building up competency and understanding in all areas, the more the ideas flow over into times when you need them. I put Little Miss on the grooming table, laid her down on her side, and ground her nails. She tried to get up on one elbow a few times, but I just laid her back down and she put her head down and went to sleep until I was done.

Then I put a gob of peanut butter on the wall and shaved her hips and tail. Then I laid her back down and did her lower legs, then sat her up and did her face. The peanut butter lasted through the hips. After that she just stood (or lay or sat) as I wanted her to with no fussing at all. Lovely! Finish it off with a bath and blow dry and she's looking pretty cute.

Her teenage period has begun now that she has a couple of real teeth poking through the gums. She's decided that she doesn't have to go in her crate when it's bedtime. In fact she doesn't have to go in her crate ANY time. It's much more fun to dance around behind me rurr-rurrring to see if she can get me to forget I asked.

Now this situation is quite specific. If she knows I have food, she's DIVING into the crate. The problem is that I've asked her to go in the crate a few times over the last couple of days - and I haven't paid for it when she did. And now I'm paying for it.

I thought a little teasing might make her a little more willing to gamble on the possibilities, so every time she refused (I only asked her three or four times, having no memory and temporarily forgetting that she had refused the last time I asked her) I get a few treats and gave them, one at a time, to Stitch. That made Syn crazy but didn't translate into her wanting to go in her crate.

So I did what I should have done in the first place - started to teach it again from the beginning. We've passed the first instance in the Levels where I have to ask her to do something (sit, I think) without having food available, but sit is a lot cheaper behaviour than going in her crate is. I'm going to work the crate up until she'll do it anytime with no obvious food in sight or smell. This week's priority.

This afternoon we went out in the field with the Gator. When we were past all the serious distractions (llamas), I put Syn on the ground so she could chase Stitch around. Syn had a great time. Stitch not so much, but it certainly encouraged her to run fast to keep ahead of the chopping machine (Syn).

On the way back, we stopped at the dugout and let Stitch show me that she's still as enthused about jumping into water as she was last summer - hurray, I was afraid she might have forgotten. Syn had a drink, got her feet wet, and ate a few wiener bits I tossed in near the shore. Then we practised getting on (Go To Mat, or in this case Boat Up) things and jumping off them (Hup) with enthusiasm. There are videos here:
http://www.sue-eh.ca/movies/movies-2/

When we got home, Syn and I had a shower and then I put her lifejacket on and we went in the hot tub (which is a swim spa - sort of a cross between a very large hot tub and an incredibly small swimming pool, which is kept at exercising-temperature, not hot-tub temperature).

I've introduced a lot of dogs to swimming, but I never used a life jacket before. I took her in a couple of weeks ago without it, with me holding her and gradually getting down to swimming depth, but that wasn't working. It seems I was explaining to her that she had better stay with me or she'd drown. This worked MUCH better.

I lifted her in by the handle on the back, lowered her into the water, let go for an instant, caught her and held her (and pinned her legs so she wasn't thrashing) and gave her wieners. Let her go again and stepped back, caught her, held her, fed her again. The third time I let go, she was very relaxed, made a nice turn, and I backed up so she had further to swim. When I caught her and held her, she didn't thrash, just hung calmly in my arms. Then we started playing chase-the-wiener and touch-my-hand. We had a great time. Every third or fourth lap I caught her and let her rest for a minute, then we'd play again.

When I put her out of the pool and went for a swim myself, she stood up with her front paws hooked over the edge and watched. I'm pretty sure that if I'd had any more wieners, she would have climbed in to join me. Excellent!

Yesterday Syn ate Something. I don't know what it was, but her poor baby belly was swollen up like a balloon, taut and uncomfortable. She threw up a lot, but that didn't seem to relieve the pressure much, and nothing came out but liquid and kibble. Not wanting to risk having her all the way upstairs, and not wanting to miss something ugly by leaving her downstairs alone, I slept in a recliner beside her crate. No, didn't get much sleep. Had to turn the fan on for the fumes. She was a bit better by morning, and by late this afternoon was feeling pretty frisky again.

*I* was not feeling particularly frisky, however, having been sitting up all night with a sick puppy. Ron needed a hand with loading seed and fertilizer into the air seeder (working grain farm). This is a pretty noisy process with big trucks and big augers. I drove to the machinery with Syn on the seat of the Gator. She was tied to the box so she couldn't jump or fall off the seat. She handled it very well. I shovelled a bit of kibble into her just before and just after we turned the auger on, and she thought about being upset about the noise, but her 24-hour fast obviously convinced her that the kibble was more important than the noise. I got to walk around the yard a bit turning this on and hold that, and she did her little Go To Mat routine on the Gator seat the whole time - no barking, whining, screaming or even scolding. Turned out to be a pretty good training day after all.

And today I entered her in a bunch of shows two months from now - 8 conformation shows (Junior Puppy), and 6 Rally trials (Novice B). Stitch is entered in Agility (Veteran Novice Jumpers With Weaves and Veteran Novice Standard) X 4, Rally (Excellent B) X 6, and obedience (Open B) X 6. We have some work to do!

We started breakfast with some off-leash Lazy Leash. She's developed an almost-automatic sit when I stop walking, and it's not straight with me yet, but it's usually better than it was last week. I like to start with a movement behaviour because she's excited to work and really, she's going to move whether I want her to or not, so best to get it out of her system. Also I WANT her to be excited when we're starting to train.

We moved on to the solo Come Game, side to side, side to side, fast and excited, and every fourth or fifth toss I called her to come sit in front of me and make eye contact. She loves this game. She always misses front because when she's 3 feet from front, she launches in the air and blows on by in the air, then has to correct herself to get it right.

We tried getting more duration on eye contact but no go today - I was getting the eye contact but after 3 seconds she couldn't stand it and had to start lying down, sitting, jumping from side to side - so we moved on to something else.

I did some free shaping. Since she's so good at going into her crate and lying down, I opened two doors of the crate and shaped her to go right through it. Took her a few minutes, but she got it.

Then we did some retrieve work. I got some very nice 7-second holds on her Chuck-It stick.

And finally I thought she was worn down enough for me to try walking around her in a sit stay. I tried and tried, shift my weight to the left, click. Shift my weight, move my leg, click. Shift my weight, move my leg, put weight on the leg - and she swings into heel position. Couldn't get it to work, so I switched to luring. I asked her to sit and stay, then put a treat in my left hand and held it on her nose. Took one step, stopped, click, treat. Stuck another treat in her face, took another step, stopped, click, treat. By the fifth time around, I could get around using only one treat. By the tenth I could take the first step without the treat in her face. It's coming.

This morning I looked around the house and saw nothing but pieces of ex-pen. Ex-pen blocking the stairs, ex-pen blocking the door to the computer room, ex-pen blocking the door to the front room, ex-pen blocking the garbage can in the kitchen, ex-pen blocking the stairs, ex-pen blocking the grooming area. Phooey.

Syn has not been excellent about being away from me, and I spend a great deal of effort making sure she doesn't run past me into this room or that space. On the other hand, she's been SO good with her Zen cue, I decided to start using it.

We live in the kitchen/living room. We do most of our training in the front room. Next to the front room is a bathroom, then the front door (most Canadian farm houses have a bathroom next to the front door - that way people don't have to take off their boots to ... ).

Every time I want to go to the front door or to the bathroom, I need to move the ex-pen, hold her back with my foot, and squeak through the hole, then block it again, and then listen to her squeaking and yapping all the time I'm out of sight. Worse, if she stops and thinks for a second, she can move the pen enough to get past it, so this scenario is actively teaching her figure out how to get out of and past barriers.

So this morning I spent a couple of minutes giving her the Zen cue and then moving the pen a bit, clicking and treating. That's the equivalent of giving her my closed Zen fist. Then we moved on to me opening the pen so she could see her way clear to get into the front room.That's open hand Zen. Next I started stepping away from the pen into the front room (floor Zen), and finally I went right out of sight.

She made three errors total. When she made a mistake, I chuted down to the beginning and explained it again.

By the third session (this afternoon), she wasn't approaching the door with me, but hanging back waiting for her Zen cue. I was able to go right out of sight (I went to the bathroom by myself! How often does THAT happen?)(I know, TMI - too much information). The best part - this is the proof of the idea that the crate behaviours should be taught with the crate door open so the everybody understands that the dog is in the crate doing her job, not in the crate being held against her will. What happened? Once she knew her job was to not come through the doorway, Syn relaxed and did her job. When I came back in sight, she was not screaming and fussing, she was lying down on the floor on the correct side of the door. When she saw me she wagged her tail but didn't get up until I clicked. Zowie!

I like to think the maniacal expression is due to the colour of her eyes and not her personality. Yeah, that's my story...

On the other hand, I'm not sure Stitch agrees with my assessment.


Got in several good sessions today. Once I get further away from the crate than 5 feet, yesterday's setup isn't viable any more, since I can't reliably hit the open roof of the crate with a bit of kibble, so she spends more time running around the room after bouncing kibble than she does sitting in the crate.

Instead, we went out to the car. I have wire crates in the car. I covered one side of one so she can't see to the downwind side of the car, put her in the crate, and then started doing Chutes and Ladders while standing quietly off to the side (I just discovered audible books to play on my iPad while wearing earphones). We easily got up to almost 3 minutes.

It rained all afternoon so we found a closed strip mall with an overhang so the sidewalk in front was dry. Since it was closed, the parking lot was empty, which made a nice dry isolated area for training - aside from the spilled french fries. BUT since we worked on the kibble on the floor of the vet's waiting room the other day, I just gave our Zen cue as we approached them and she walked right over them with no trouble at all. We worked in that area for about 10 minutes and I only had to remind her that the fries were off limits once. Good puppy!

We started at the beginning, working on hand targets (that is, jumping all over the place in her eagerness to bop my hand) and focus. Got a nice 10 seconds of focus right away, that was very nice.

Since she seemed to have a little too much starch in her shorts, we did some Lazy Leash/heeling. She could pass a novice Rally test right now, I'm sure (well, y'know, assuming she actually stayed sitting when I asked her to and stuff like that). Of course, 80% of her LL time is spent airborne (just like she is in the photo above), which makes it a bit difficult to keep her leash untangled, but she IS beside me and she IS having a good time.

We did fasts and slows and figure 8s and about turns. Wow! No precision, but she definitely understands the exerci... wait, why is that brown and white pup in the window watching us? Why is she following us? Is this legal?

Once she got her reflection out of her system, we did some sit stays. I was able to work up to 10 feet away and 10 seconds duration! I still can't walk around her because she thinks I'm asking for a swing finish every time I try, so we worked on sit stay a bit with me just moving one leg this way, then the other leg that way. I actually got to shift my weight onto an outside leg once or twice.

And last night she slept alone in her crate in the living room while Stitch slept in her own crate in the dog room. My baby's growing up. Very few puppy incisors left, and she's chewing EVERYTHING.

Good day.

We started working seriously on the separation-when-she's-in-a-crate thing.

Here's the setup. The lid of the crate hangs down and blocks her view of me out the window.


This gets a click for going in the crate.


Nope, no click for peeking.


Click for not looking at me.


Click for lying down. Now we start Chutes & Ladders.

We got nicely up to 10 seconds. Of course she knows where I am (sitting on the couch 10 feet over here), and 10 seconds isn't long, but on the other hand, 10 seconds is as long as we've got on any other duration behaviour (down stay, sit stay, focus), so I'm happy with it. I can get further from the crate, step out of the room, and do up the doors and windows later, when we have the behaviour better. I'm loving this crate. The open top means I can toss kibble into the crate without interrupting her behaviour (and most of them land in the crate - I'm only 10 feet away). Good session. Makes me feel like I'm doing something more useful to solve this problem than screaming SHUT UP at her.

Puppy class this evening. Still a little scared of evil dogs (14-week-old Bulldog puppy, cute as a bug, name is Lemon), but only when she came right over and pushed into her face. I got a LOT of focus work in - got a really solid 14 seconds. Also clicked her for looking at the other puppies.

When class was over we went upstairs to the vet clinic for her final distemper vaccination. While we were waiting, we worked L2 Lazy Leash Step 4 (walk past a treat on the ground) and Step 5 (LL in new places). Excellent. We also got in L2 Zen Step 4 (drop a treat and give your Zen cue as it's falling). What a good puppy! We worked for about 10 minutes on this, and I think she got one treat off the floor as she was walking slowly over it. This stuff really works! (I'm not shocked, I'm just really pleased).

Well, the vacation's over.

With the arrival of the tip of her first REAL tooth, Syn has begun to exercise her teenager-rights. She still has all the basics she's learned so far (thank GOODNESS she has all the basics she's learned so far!) but apparently thinking INSIDE the box is no longer a personal choice.

Having been blocked from going up the stairs by an ex-pen, bungied Diet Coke boxes and dog books on one side, a baby gate in the middle, and 2 crates on the other side, instead of meekly accepting the state of the universe, she found another way up - over the couch.

Having made her first official countersurfing "kill", she now FLINGS herself at the kitchen counter when she can't reach what I've put on there.

Finding herself shut out of the bedroom this morning (and having successfully found a way up the stairs), she scratched the bedroom door all to heck to get in to me. Unfortunately at the time I was in the bathroom having a shower.

When she sees other dogs now, she flings herself forward to meet & greet. She still doesn't attempt to pull on the lead, but it seems to come as a shock when she hits the end of the leash - a shock and no longer a hindrance, but something that can probably be overcome by flinging herself at the end three or four more times.

Yes, we have left the fear period and entered the fling period.

While I was writing the previous paragraph, she came in from the yard with a very dead squashed robin. This is a LARGE bird, as songbirds go. When I realized what she was chomping so gleefully on I was reduced to screaming SYN SYN SYN STITCH SYN (here she dropped it) YES SYN SYN SYN C'MON GIRLS as I shuffled them hastily into the dogroom so I could clean up the mess. Not exactly a coherent training moment. Now she's searching every inch of the living room, sure she remembers leaving a dead bird in here somewhere...

On the weekend we took 5 llamas up north to be neutered, met Stitch and my friend Dawn at a sheepherding clinic on the way, then went to visit my parents and pick up a truckload of books, then to my son's place in another city to deliver the books, then home. Nearly 10 hours of driving.

We delivered the llamas to Dawn at the herding clinic. All the dogs looked like FUN FUN FUN to Syn, except the Giant Schnauzer (who was fun last month, but now seems dauntingly large). She was glad to see Stitch - gladder than Stitch was to see her, I'm sure - and spent several hours bouncing on her head and biting her ears.

How did Stitch do at the herding clinic? She earned another title! How does a dog earn a title at a clinic? Well, she did! She is now officially TWMUPHD. The World's Most Useless Potential Herding Dog! Herding is really Not Her Thing.

Syn, on the other hand, did pretty well. No, she didn't get to herd sheep, but she walked well on leash, stopped jumping on Stitch's head when I asked her to (for a minute or two, at least), relaxed at my feet while we were watching the clinic, and once again was a brilliant traveller.

She bullied my mom's Mini Schnauzer and didn't listen well when he told her to leave him alone - but I expect Stitch will sort that attitude out over the next few weeks. And again, she stopped when I told her to. And made her. And told her to. And told her to.

What I have to do over the next couple of weeks is get her out in public and retrain what she's already learned - Lazy Leash in spite of distractions, come, sit, down (down? why?). And we need to spend some serious time on staying quietly in her crate whether she can see me (or Stitch) or not.

4 months! Has she lived with me 8 weeks already? THEN WHY IS SHE STILL CRYING IN THE CRATE WHEN I LEAVE HER ALONE?

Ahem. Possibly because I have taught her to be happy in the crate when I'm there, and when I'm not there, but haven't done anything to explain being happy in the crate when I'm LEAVING her alone? Nah, that couldn't be it...

Last night we tried Lazy Leash Step 3 (dog keeps the leash loose with a treat on the floor at her feet while you take on step in any direction) and Step 4 (dog keeps the leash loose while you both walk past the treat on the floor). Gee, just when I was complaining about her not being able to leave a treat she thinks might be still on the floor, along comes a Step to eliminate the problem! Whoever wrote these Levels must be a genius! (okay okay, quit snickering). Step 3 was Very Difficult for her. She was great when I was standing still (yeah, I know how to do THIS!), but as soon as I moved, she darted for it. "Unfortunately" the leash was too short for her to reach it, so she moved around me and tried again from the opposite direction. Nope, that didn't work either. We tried again with it farther away. That was easier, but it took her a long time to be able to give me eye contact with the treat on the floor, knowing I was going to move away again soon. It was even harder for HER to move with me. I had to call her to get her to move! Finally she figured it out, and gradually she was able to watch me AND walk with me.

Now that she's started losing her baby teeth, she's starting to feel grown up. Like she has some control over the way things run and like she doesn't have to obey the rules even if I say that's the way things are. Like she has an opinion and should be listened to.

For instance, I asked her to go in her crate this evening. She thought about ducking into the dog room. Changed her mind. Thought about going in the kitchen. Changed her mind. Thought about going behind me. That didn't work. When I stopped asking her to get in the crate and asked her to come to me instead, she came, leaking all the way. I helped her into the crate, closed the door, cleaned up the floor. I thought. I let her out and asked her if she wanted to go out. YES!! She ran outside and peed. Then I asked her to go in her crate and she ran right in. Earth to Sue.

For instance, this morning in class she had a lot more trouble not hitting the end of the leash. She's still not PULLING on the leash, just forgetting it's there and bouncing off the end of it, sometimes two or three times before she remembers that I'm there and comes back to give me eye contact.

Still, it's amazing how well she can pay attention in the class. It's a busy class divided into four groups, all doing different things.

Today she went whipping through tunnels again, and we practised looking at a treat over THERE on a plastic margarine tub lid, to be used later as a target to reward her for going over other agility obstacles. She got this right away, and I started using the cue "look" when she was staring at it and wanting to run to it, then "go" to release her or "go through" to send her through the tunnel. In between turns, even though she clearly wanted to run to everybody else's target lid, she was able to keep the leash loose, so I also started giving her a little leash pressure to lean on when it was her turn.

We did a version of the solo Come Game, and then the class did a neat thing for jumping up - look the dog's leash around a door handle, go to the other side of the door, and close the door. Now the puppy is securely fastened to an immovable object and people can approach and move away to reward four feet on the floor or punish jumping up. This is a good idea, but we declined to play right now for two reasons. First, I want Syn to be comfortable jumping up on me because she's going to have to Paws Up as my service dog. That's an excuse, though, since the DOG isn't being punished for jumping up, just not getting what she wants (eye contact, touching, talking, closer to the person's face). The real reason is that she's still doing that submissive urination thing (not as often, but she's getting more excited than she did before) when she says hello to people and I WANT her to greet people standing up on them, since she's less likely to feel submissive and pee when she's standing up.

We did some Lazy Leash, and she was fabulous. When she thinks we're working, she's jump-jump-jumping along in heel position, and doing swing finishes when I turn around. Excellent, and lots of treats for enthusiasm.

One thing I did in spare moments was reward her for putting her mouth on the leash and a rag I brought. Gosh, I'm glad Stitch will be coming home tomorrow, I'll be able to cut my pain pills in half when I've got somebody around who knows how to pick things up... Anyway, I noticed when we had to stand and do nothing for any length of time, Syn started mouthing her leash. This isn't trying to grab the leash, it's the deliberate "look, ma, I'm doing that retrieve thing! Pay attention!" so I sat down and offered her the rag. We got up to three really good tugs, which is grand. I'm so excited about how this pup seems to remember things for long periods of time. We haven't really worked on retrieving all week, but she remembered what we were doing. I HAVE to be careful to work her where is IS, not to expect her to be where we left off a week ago (or a month ago, or yesterday).

When we left the training building, I put a couple of treats on the ground in the parking lot and walked away from them. She came right with me with no trouble at all (even though I WAS ready to start training it again, right from the beginning). By the third or fourth pass by them, she apparently wasn't even thinking about them any more, so I built up a little pile of treats. Nope, not interested, thanks, I'm working here!

What's even more fun than having a 15-week-old puppy doing left and right swing finishes (well, almost) is the look of shock and amazement on someone's face when you show them. Very satisfying.

Today we got back to "work". Since we've been playing around with stacking and swing finishes and pushing on into retrieving, today we went back to the beginning and tested all of Level 1 again. Flying colours. I'm thinking it would be extremely worthwhile to go back to the beginning every couple of months and retest everything. Sort of like getting requalified on your CPR certificate.

While we were doing downs, I tossed a treat about 10 feet away and when she was on her way back I asked her to down and she did! It was only 5 feet away from me, but she stopped so fast she almost did a somersault. Yeah. Drop on Recall. That's the exercise Stitch failed in the obedience trial last weekend...

Once through Level 1, we started on Level 2. We hadn't finished Zen - Step 3 is staying off a treat on the floor for 30 seconds. Two weeks ago that was a Never-Ever behaviour. Just Ain't Gonna Happen. And Step 4 is staying off a treat that I drop to the floor when I don't give the Leave It cue until AFTER it leaves my hand. Well, ferholycow, she did both of them. She needed my foot on the drop treat the first time, but after that she was backing off brilliantly.

Focus didn't go quite as well. She got Step 4 - holding eye contact for 10 seconds - the first time I asked for it, but the second time, she decided there were faster ways to force me to give her a treat and she started flipping her head and rolling from hip to hip, sitting and downing... needs work.

Got all the way through Level 2 Come, she's GOOD at that. There's something she's missing though. We did a little bit of work one time on a grate in the city where I'd toss treats down the drain and then reward her when she refocused on me. We need to do that again. Once she's on the trail of a lost treat, she's tough to get back until she's found it. Oh well, she's VERY good at concentrating!

And that's as far as we got. It was an excellent session. Come to think of it, the only times that AREN'T excellent with this pup are when I'm thinking about nothing else except how young bitches with puppy vaginitis are hard to housetrain. What an excellent puppy!

I had to get this photo before all her baby teeth fell out - one's gone already (middle bottom). I love this stage - the huge mouth and the ridiculous little tiny teeth.

I got three videos of the swing finish - they're over there on the left on the Movie Album page. She figured out the right swing so fast I decided to teach her a left AND a right swing.

We had a fun day today. I've been slaving over the computer and doing pretty much nothing else, so when I stop I don't want to think but I do want to do something with the pup.

There have been a couple of questions on the list recently about teaching the dog to walk beside the handler instead of sideways, head pointing at the hands and tail pointing to the rest of the universe.

I was thinking of manyy different ways of teaching a swing finish, which is what solves this problem. A swing finish has the dog going from in front of the handler (facing the handler) to the heel position behind the handler on the his left side. The dog gets there by moving her head a very short distance (between the handler's knees around to the left of the handler's left knee) and moving her butt a long distance (from in front of the handler, tail pointing north) to beside the handler (tail pointing south).

Another reason I'm thinking about swing finishes is because it suddenly occurred to me that Syn, Stitch and I and several friends will be attending eleven rally trials and twelve conformation shows in three weekends IN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS ARRRRRGGGHHHH. So I read through the rally rules, just on a whim, and guess what? There's nothing in there but the swing finish that Syn can't do yet. Oh, sure, not with the necessary duration or difficulty and not necessarily on a single voice cue, but she CAN do them. Pseudo-heeling? Check. Sit? Down? Stay? Come? Yeppers. Moving sidestep? That's a swing finish. Stay while I walk around her? Not yet, but it's coming. Her attention and focus are excellent. I had only thought to put Syn in conformation, but hey, what the heck. Maybe she'll be ready for rally too.

Syn and I started playing with the idea of getting from HERE to THERE because the swing finish has always been a complicated behaviour to teach. I started with Level 2 Communication, Step 2 - the dog moves out of your way. When I wrote this, I was thinking of it as a very small beginning of a swing finish. After about 2 minutes, we moved on to Level 2 Communication, Step 3 - the dog moves out of your way to your left. And holy cow, she started to get it.

I videoed the third 5-minute session and I'll have it up tomorrow. It's incredible. I'm gobsmacked. Scuba and Stitch at 6 months didn't have swing finishes as far along as Syn's is after 15 minutes of training.

Then I videoed the start of me teaching her to do a swing finish to my right to show how I started in the beginning.

I'm very excited.

New class started this morning - and it's not a puppy class, it's a regular class called "K9 Fun 101" where we'll be exploring a bit of agility, a bit of rially, a bit of barrel racing, etc. First class was MARVELOUS for Syn. This is the same place we went to where she met the monstrous evil Cairn Terrier puppy that wagged its tail at her, and the satanic evil Mini Dachshund puppy that actually LOOKED at her - and where she learned to play the Come Game through a tunnel.

She trucked along in the parking lot on a loose leash, but when she realized where she was, she was eager to go in the door. I carried her in, just to be sure she didn't get scared again, but no, she wanted down and she wanted to say hello to everybody. No submissive urination, even though there were lots of people bending over her to pet her. She was interested and a bit curious about the other dogs, but not afraid. The m.e. Cairn Terrier is in the same class. Syn is now about 4 times its size, though she was only slightly bigger last time they met. This time she thought it might be looking kind of cute.

The class was divided into 3 stations. First station was getting the dog's attention and then Zen. Fabulous eye contact, with none of the dancing I get at home. 10 seconds with no trouble at all. The third station was playing with toys and tugging, and there was some barking going on from the other side of the room, which bothered Syn, but she got a treat every time she looked back at me. She no longer thinks barking means she's in imminent danger. She's starting to trust that if I'm not upset, there are probably treats for her in situations that look dangerous. If she didn't learn anything else this morning, that's a biggie. Zen of course was excellent, in hand, open hand, on the floor. She is SO CUTE when she pushes back from the treat, then sits staring at it and wagging her tail furiously. I could just dump all the treats I brought on the floor in front of her to reward her for just being cute.

The second station was a bit of walking on leash - again, excellent except for the part where I'm trying to walk slowly to give myself a chance to reward her and she's curling around in front of me to see what's taking me so long, and then I'm trying not to step on her. Maybe this week we should practise a little Lazy-Leash-in-a-straight-line.

And the third station, as I said, was playing and tugging. She will NOT tug in public, so I continued clicking her for holding the end of her leash, and she started really getting into it. I got some really strong three-yank tugs. When she got tired of doing that, we worked a bit on having her go over on her side and put her head down. Nobody could believe that the pup who (2 weeks ago?) was screeching if another dog looked at her could relax enough to be on her side in the same building. *I* couldn't believe it.

After the class, she got to meet an adult Beardie. She enjoyed walking around behind her sniffing her skirts, but backed off when the Beardie turned around to say hello. This dog was a pup in the same classes with Stitch 6 years ago. And I had someone hold her while I walked 40' away. She watched me but didn't fuss as I went. Then I got a fast, excited 40' recall.

For supper Syn and I did some random shaping practise - I got her to go under two different chairs and touch a box. Then we did some eye contact, tried sitting up from a down on cue (iffy, took the cue off), worked the relax a bit more, and then some retrieving. Her grip is much firmer and solider now that I've been rewarding the almost-tug. I expected some trouble with her thinking she was supposed to pull the Chuck-It out of my hand, but I decided it would be worth taking the time to fix if I can teach her to tug on cue (it's a great reward for times when you can't use treats and praise isn't doing the job. Stitch doesn't do it, and neither did Scuba, and I missed it). In fact what happened was that when I lowered the Chuck-It toward the floor, she started picking it up. !

And then she pooped inside by the dog door because it's raining out.

Excellent session this evening. We started with a little bit of eye contact. Note to self: hungry puppies do NOT do duration behaviours. In 3 seconds of eye contact, she managed 2 downs, 3 sits, a roll onto her left side, and pawed me twice. We stopped working on eye contact.

Then I took a small hemp bag with a squeaker inside (that's a REAL hemp bag, not a bag of weed... ) and clicked her for putting her mouth on it. We didn't get any duration hold like we got with the tug toy yesterday, but we got a lot of very good eager mouth. Then I put it 2 feet to her left and shaped her to touch it. When she was repeating the touch consistently, I put it 2 feet to her right and shaped it again, then 2 feet behind her.

By then she was hitting the bag hard enough to make it squeak each time, so I dared to wait a second after the first hit, then click the second one. That didn't stop her from hitting it, so I waited a bit longer the next time, et voila, she picked it up! Three of those and I held the click long enough for her to turn towards me, then to take a step towards me. I wouldn't call it a retrieve - in fact I wouldn't call it a fetch yet, but she got it consistently closer to me, and several times I managed to get it in my hand without reaching too far. That was exciting.

The Orijen kibble I'm using is definitely a better size than the itty-bitty kibble I was using when Stitch was a puppy. I had to give Stitch three or four pieces to keep up any enthusiasm at all - and that wasn't Stitch's fault, just that the kibble was so tiny. The Orijen, though, is getting harder and harder for Syn to chew. Her mouth now looks huge and her teeth look like pins. Her gums are so swollen it's a wonder she can chew at all (she seems to find human flesh particularly appetizing right now). I bought her a couple of big bully sticks the other day and she's been packing them around the house as if she had a briefcase. Fun to think that in a week or two she'll have a little bitty puppy mouth and huge vampire choppers - my favourite picture of puppies.

After we finished the retrieve, we did some conformation stacking. It's coming along very nicely. She's still too wiggly (maybe she has rubber bones) to assume her own stack, but once I put her in it she can hold it for up to 10 seconds while I move my hand with a kibble in it towards her nose and away. She looks good. My moving her feet doesn't bother her, and her tail is SO pretty, it forms the ring all on its own and she carries it up almost all the time. I haven't started working on being able to show her teeth while I've got bait in my hand, but since her Zen is good I can put the kibble on the floor in front of her and then work her mouth.

Finally, I asked her to roll onto her side and we worked on relax. It's been several days since we started that roll, and she remembered it. She almost rolled on her own (flipping her nose toward her hip, rolling off the hip and nearly coming off her elbow as well), but once I lured her all the way down, she stayed in position. She doesn't have the actual "relax" part yet, of course. Her front legs are reaching forward for the bait, and once in a while she gives a giant rabbit kick with both back legs - while staying on her side.

So we finished a very satisfying session. What a good puppy!

At least until I sat down to write this out, when I heard a small commotion in the kitchen and she came trotting triumphantly into the living room carrying the plastic dish I had her kibble in. Awwww, her first full-height catch off the kitchen counter! Isn't that preshus!

Another puppy class tonight. I expected it to go a bit better than last week because Syn has been rapidly outgrowing her idea that she has to pee every time anybody looks at her.

Didn't go a bit better. Went a LOT better. She was still a little nervous of having a bold puppy right behind her (notably a very bold Bulldog puppy), but otherwise she was Tough. There were four other people and the instructor. I finally had to hold her leash to let anybody have access to their own pups, as Syn was busy racing back and forth trying to force everyone to play the Come Game with her.

Her faith in the Come Game is quite remarkable. She spent the entire hour trying to play it.

After about half an hour, when I figured the other owners were probably getting annoyed about how MY puppy was constantly in their way when they were trying to feed their own pups, I put her on leash and started playing my own solo version of Monkey In The Middle. I sat far enough away from everyone else that she could feel fairly close to them but was unable to actually get to them. Then I just sat and let her watch them feed their pups... and feed their pups... and feed their pups... until she thought to check in with me. I gave her three treats and told her to go see what else she could find. Another few minutes of watching, and she was back in front of me. Another few times and she wouldn't go back at all, just sat staring at me. Superb eye contact, especially in that situation.

The last few minutes I picked up a tug toy and clicked her for putting her mouth over it. We got up to 4 grabs and 4 seconds of hold.

When we got home, we spent supper working the hold on one of our own tug toys, followed by sit stay (I thought I'd get some decent duration since she was tired - and I was right). I was able to walk 20' away and back, and got up to 15 seconds at 6 feet. We finished off with a bit of our solo Come Game .

One last long day of successfully doing nothing until we got home in the evening. Then she had a bath and blow-dry with a minimum of peanut butter on the wall, had her nails ground with NO peanut butter or treats - just sat on the table and let me do it, occasionally wagging her tail. Then she had an hour-long rip-and-tear with an almost-empty yogurt container.

We ended the day with a brush-up session. She's decided that down is the most profitable behaviour, so I spent one-fifth of her kibble rewarding only sits.

One-fifth on building a hold on my finger to 3 seconds - we did get a few nice solid ones, but most only lasted 2 seconds with a second one as soon as she let go.

One-fifth on recalls - 4 or 5 SynSyns with me tossing the next one to my left as she rushes toward me from the right, the next one tossed to the right as she hurries back from the left. This really gets her excited and is VERY good for exercise when it's miserable out. After 4 or 5 side-to-side ones, I call Syn Come and she comes in front of me, sits, and makes eye contact.

One-fifth on building a down-stay toward 10 seconds. We have a pretty good 8.

And one-fifth on eye contact and starting to see if I can shape her to back up. This will be a VERY difficult shaping exercise because everything she does is inch closer to me. I might have to start by rapid-firing treats into her "aggressively" and see if I can get her to gobble while moving backwards a bit.

Nothing much to report today, a day of travelling and trying to keep her from commenting on everything when the baby was trying to sleep.

Thinking over the trip, though, what she knows is quite shocking.

She can walk on a leash better than most adult dogs, unless she gets "the rips", and even then she's running until she hits the end of the leash, not trying to pull me anywhere.

In spite of her imminent-teething need to put her teeth on everything and everyone (which at this point is fine with me, I'm a big believer in teaching a puppy to control her bite), she's very, very good with her teeth, mouthing and play-biting and flea-biting with a good understanding of the fragility of her bitees.

She is, so far, 100% housetrained in hotels. Once she had to pee really badly, and once she had a bit of diarrhea, but she fussed so much on each occasion that I easily got her outside before she ran out of time.

She listens to "no", my Zen cue. She listens to it when I'm talking about not: putting her mouth on something; barging over to greet someone; jumping up on me when I have a food or water dish in my hand. Brilliant.

Her attention in spite of distractions is amazing.

Her recall is terrific almost always.

What she doesn't know: to stop commenting on everything that happens, specifically, the fact that nobody's looking at her when the baby's trying to sleep, and the fact that I am brushing my teeth at midnight in a hotel room.

Syn sat in her crate in the truck all day yesterday. I took her out to pee&play every hour, but it was a long day for her anyway. She was VERY good, but in the evening we walked around the hotel parking lot and she went cRRRRazy. She found a curb about a foot high and figured out how to jump up it, which she thought was very funny, she turned and jumped down it, and then went ripping 8 times around me in a circle defined by the 6' leash, as fast as she could go, growling like a fiend. Then up and down the curb again, and another 8 laps. She did this five times until she'd burned the junk out of her engine and was ready to walk politely back into the hotel. Repeated the performance at 5 this morning.

Amazingly, though, even when she was running like a banshee, while she HIT the end of the leash occasionally, she never PULLED on it. When she hit the end of it, she just reversed course and kept on going, so when she was doing enormous circles around me, the leash wasn't tight. Wow!

I can only let her play with Stitch outside because when they play, Syn barks - not a polite thing to do in a hotel.

And Stitch - Stitch who I haven't seen in weeks - Stitch was entered in Rally Novice Team, Advanced C, Excellent C, and Versatility (this is a CARO Rally trial), and passed Novice Team, Advanced, Excellent AND Versatility. Finished her Versatility title and earned two legs towards her Silver Championship (needed to have Advanced and Excellent scores over 190). Today Stitch finished her Novice Team title, earned her first leg in Advanced Team, and got another Silver leg from Excellent. Excellent day, excellent weekend.

Today Syn had a harder time staying calm, having sat in a box for 2 1/2 days, but she managed. Went back to mom & dad's and bugged old Jimmy until he told her to leave her alone - and then she had a hard time believing him. We'll see how she does in class next week now that she's been reminded of how much fun Stitch is and seen that she can rip and tear with another dog.