blog

13 months and rising

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-03-20T17:24:54-06:00

We haven't done any more work on duration yet, but we've been really giving that chair problem what-for. We spent several sessions just reminding Syn of how much fun a swing finish really is, and how she could use the swing to achieve a backing-up-in-heel-position. Once that was securely established, we worked some more on various walls around the house, and learning to spin in FRONT of the space and back into it.

Hmmm. Walls appear to be something solid-and-understood.

Then I set up two sections of a plastic exercise pen for her to back into. THAT was definitely NOT a wall. For one thing, it wiggled when she hit it. That's not, apparently, the way the universe is supposed to work. She tried pawing the stupid thing. No click. She tried staring at me. No click. She tried lying down. OK, lying down is her last line of defence when she has NO clue what to do, so I stood in front of the V and lured her to back up into it. That took a few minutes. Her tail developed a mind of its own and kept missing the opening (in spite of the fact that the opening was 3 feet wide and unmissable). Eventually, in very small steps, she got control of the wayward appendage and started getting it right. And the ex-pen didn't attack her. In fact, it was kind of fun backing into the space.

Then we stepped away from the pen and did a bunch more swing finishes.

Next I stood next to it again, with the pen in heel position, and we worked on getting her to swing AND back up into position. This is what I saw on my left side when she was getting it:
At this point she was volunteering to spin and wiggle her little behind in there as far as it would go. Then we tried it with various arrangements of chairs, with excellent success.

Next stop, back to the airport.

13 months still

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-03-18T21:54:12-06:00

We went to the airport for some training this morning, and ran into several small glitches. First, she needs practise in doing nothing for longer periods of time. I tried standing in line to wend our way up to a ticket agent (we weren't going anywhere, and I'm sure the people behind me were thrilled when I stepped out of line instead of going to the agent when we got to the front of the line). Syn was working the entire time. Not excited, not obtrusive, but working. Diligently. She'd sit in heel position for about 20 seconds, then shuffle forward or stand up and move in front of me to look up to see what we were doing. Nothing. Get back in position. Stay. Yeah, quite willing to get back in position, but the next one didn't last any longer. One behaviour that's not quite ready for the big time.

The next one was chairs. In airport bench seating, there is frequently a space between THIS set of 4 or 5 seats, and the NEXT set. This space is usually only about a foot wide - not wide enough to put a suitcase in, or anything else, really, but just the right size for a Service Dog to back into and remain safe and out of the way. But Syn couldn't get into it. I sat in a seat with a space to my left and cued a swing finish, and she was perplexed. First, I was sitting. Having we never practised this with me sitting? Yes, we have. But we've never practised it with me sitting and no apparent way for her to get into the space, since the next set of seats was clearly blocking her way.

A third glitch was that we ran into a Big Man on security. While everybody else in security was waving and smiling at us, ready to watch yet another SD candidate practising going through an unused security gate, the BM told me in no uncertain terms that not only was I not allowed to practise there, but I wasn't even supposed to be in the security area to ask without a boarding pass. Everyone else looked befuddled and later downstairs one of the others stopped by to tell me to try again when the regular shift was on duty. Sigh. Sometimes I get very tired of being polite.

Anyway, we came home and I stood with a wall a foot to my right. Syn couldn't swing into position. 2 feet to my right. OK, she managed that, but she did it by walking forward (heading behind me) and turning around when she was clear, then walking forward into position. Nyuh uh. That's not the way to do it. But what IS the way to do it? I can't remember. It's so slick and easy when it's done right…

I sent Syn to her mat and invited Stitch to demonstrate. She took one look at the space, spun around IN FRONT OF ME and serenely backed in to perfect position.

Oh. Of course.

So I invited Syn back, "held on" to her nose with a treat in my right hand and cued the swing with my voice and left-hand signal. And she did it. And she got a little excited. Oh! Look! I did it! and then she backed up a bit into the exact correct position, just like Stitch had done. We practised it five or 6 times against different walls and getting tighter each time, and now I'll let her sleep on it for the night and see what she comes up with in the morning, but I'm pretty sure we've got that little glitch settled.

The first one - needs more duration on boring behaviours - will just take some practise doing boring behaviours. Note that she wasn't rowdy. She was quiet and unobtrusive (as unobtrusive as a very cute little brown dog with a mischievous eye and a cute smile can be)(no, I'm not prejudiced, why do you ask?) and certainly ready to do any of her service behaviours at the drop of a hat. Or leash. Or credit card. Or cane. The part I really need to concentrate on, though, will be telling her that the boring stuff is stuff she does when she's in uniform, and that stuff she does when she's NOT in uniform will NOT be boring.

13 months

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-03-12T16:38:27-06:00

I thought I was going to stop writing Syn's blog when she turned a year, but apparently she has fans, so here's a monthly update.

We've been working diligently on her obnoxiousness. Now that I'm noticing it, she does spend a fair amount of time bouncing off me (not quite as much springiness in this springboard as there was a while ago!). We're working on that.

We've also spent a number of meals working on conformation stacking, and we've been going to conformation class once a week and working on running around the ring without looking at me or thinking about Lazy Leash. She seems to be getting it.

She seems to have completely forgotten that she was ever afraid of picking up a dog bucket lest it fall to the floor and make a noise. She now waits eagerly for the setting-the-table cue of "Who's hungry?" or "dish" or "eat" or "What time is it?" or a sneeze… and then runs to get both buckets.

So we entered 6 conformation shows in 3 days two weekends ago. There were 3 PWD bitches entered - Syn, Stitch, and a friend's girl, Teva. The idea was for Syn and Teva to share points and in another couple of shows, they'd both be finished their Championships (they both outclass old Stitch, who is there to provide "cannon fodder").

The first show, Syn won. 2 points. Well, wasn't that nice! She seems to be really understanding the part about running around without looking at me, though she has to look back at me once in a while and then LEAP to tell me what a good time she's having. Didn't get a look in the Group, but didn't expect it. She's 13 months old, probably the ugliest time in a dog's entire life. Tall and scrawny, coat looking like Dennis The Menace.

The second show, Syn won. 2 points. Well! Wasn't that nice! She's starting to lean into her stack and show off her gorgeous withers. Then we went in for the Group and… what? ME? Oh, good, we made the cut, that's a nice little ego boost… what? THIRD? Yep. She got 3rd in Group over some very nice adult dogs with big wins behind them, for another 3 points. WELL! Wasn't THAT nice!

The third show, Syn won the breed again, 2 points to finish her Championship, and didn't place again in the Group, but her placing obviously wasn't a fluke since she made the cut. And a lovely time was had by all!

And then I should have boosted her up to Specials and let Teva have the rest of the points, but unfortunately I haven't gotten around to getting her registered in Canada yet, and she needs a Canadian number to show as a Special. Since she was obviously not going along with the "sharing" feeling we had going into the weekend, I pulled her from the rest of the shows so Teva could get in on the action.

Nice.

The next weekend she was entered in Rally Advanced. Within the last 6 weeks, she's finished her Rally Novice title and gotten her first leg in Advanced, plus I was tired from the weekend and had other priorities, so we didn't really practise. Which means that I got EXACTLY what I deserved the first day of the Rally trial. Syn went cheerfully into the ring and when I started walking, she went out to arm's length, pointedly watched where she was going instead of looking at me, and struck up a nice trot. She kept that up throughout. The third station was a moving down, which she ignored (and so didn't qualify) so I finished the course off feeding her about every second step and playing with her muzzle. That'll teach me not to let the dog know we switched sports in mid-stride.

We did do some practising at supper and breakfast the next morning, and when we went in the ring she redeemed us. Her performance was lovely, happy, tight and responsive. She got a perfect 200, but I lost us 2 points by giving her a second command she didn't really need, so a 198 and High In Class.

Which was nice, but what's making me smile is coming home on consecutive weekends with a rosette in 2 different sports with a year-old puppy.

And 5 different people called her "Red Fraggle", which is what my husband calls her, so I give up.Syn on the left. OK, work in progress, but so many people see it with no coaxing. Her ponytails will get bigger. Obviously she needs some red bows.

11 months 28 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-19T11:25:31-07:00

First birthday coming up!

Last weekend Stitch and I did a 2-day seminar, with lots of help from Syn.

Nonbelievers, I'm sure, would have looked at Syn and thought "What an obnoxious puppy! Always jumping up and down, wouldn't stay in heel position, wouldn't stay on her mat, glad MY dog doesn't act like that!"

Believers, I'm sure, would have looked at her and thought "What an amazing puppy! Didn't want to stay on her mat because she spent the ENTIRE 8 hours wanting to come out on the floor and work, work, work. Followed Sue's left shoulder forward from heel position every time Sue moved it! So full of enthusiasm for the job she could easily have exploded!"

Her stamina and joy and willingness were bloody amazing. I had to tie her leash near the pause table to keep her out of my face. She was quiet, though, didn't whine or yap the whole time, but went to sleep or watched me from the mat while I was out on the floor talking or working with Stitch.

I'll definitely be working on her stamina for duration behaviours without feedback (gee, would that be the Level 3 we keep putting off?) in the near future, but in the meantime this was a marvellous affirmation of the fact that I've been assiduously creating EXACTLY the puppy I wanted to create, which is thrilling.

11 months 22 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-13T17:17:12-07:00

This morning we worked the buckets again, but this time I tossed out about a dozen items, including clickers, 5 buckets, a rubber shoe, a pen, a tennis ball so big Syn can barely get it in her mouth, a salad spoon.

Syn loved this game, where she got to pick what she got and bring things back on her own schedule. To my amazement, she was hot to bring back the buckets, and usually brought them first. At first she had trouble finding the clickers after retrieving the larger items, but she quickly shifted her "looker" to check for all the items. This was nice to see because it's exactly what she has to learn to do on the agility course - look for the next obstacle while she's taking the previous one.

I was particularly interesting to see her in the middle of picking up, for instance, the shoe, and spot a bucket. Then her brain went into overdrive as she tried to decide… bring back the shoe, get the treat, or drop the shoe and get the bucket? Buckets ALWAYS pay off… but the shoe is easy… and it's already in my mouth… Usually she brought back what she already had, but once in a while she actually dropped it to pick up the scary bucket.

Once she swung the #2 bucket around really fast, it hit the step and bounced back with the handle still in her mouth and hit her in the face. She jumped away from it and dropped it, but immediately darted forward, grabbed it, and finished the job. HUGE improvement!

And she TRIED to work up the nerve and know-how to bring the #4 (biggest) bucket. She tried it, lost courage, circled, tried it again, lost her nerve again, tried it again. At that point I sent Stitch in to get it and praised them both. I'm happy she was trying in the first place. The fact that she KEPT trying was thrilling. We did a few more after I took the big bucket out. Great session.

Then I got out Stitch's old Easy Button and asked Syn to lie down. Stitch immediately started whapping it. Syn watched carefully. Then I asked Stitch to lie down and released Syn, who IMMEDIATELY ran over to the button and started whapping it. COOL! She has never seen this button before, and she's never been taught to paw-target anything like it (to the best of my memory). The only way I can think of to explain it is that she's been watching Stitch retrieve buckets for several days when Syn herself had failed and be rewarded for it, and then Syn got to try the same thing again. That was really exciting for me, one of those magic little moments that show up in training.

We're doing Syn's second seminar starting tomorrow. I hope she does well. I can't imagine anyone not being impressed by her basic behaviours and enthusiasm.

11 months 21 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-12T16:16:40-07:00

We worked the bucket retrieve again last night and it went almost exactly as it did in the morning. Syn couldn't pick one up at first, so we shaped interaction with the cardboard box until she was thoroughly enjoying herself, then I switched to the #1 and #2 buckets. She tried several changes of subject. She saw the buckets come out, then turned pointedly and looked for the box. Then she went Around a chair. Then she thumped an exercise ball a few times. None of those worked, so she looked at the bucket. Click. Walked to the bucket. Click. Targeted the bucket. Click. That's as close as she could get, she growled (not a real growl, but her expressive Portie-grumble that she does under any and all not-normal circumstances), and then she started to lie down, so I asked Stitch to get a bucket, clicked Stitch and fed her. And again. And again. And again, and now Syn is desperately asking to get back in the game. I ask Stitch to down and Syn gallops in without being asked, grabs the bucket, and brings it to me. That's enough of a win for one session, and we run to the pantry to put her supper in the bucket.

This morning, we went into the training room together and without saying a word I tossed out all 4 buckets. Syn looked at the buckets, then at me, and then growled, and then… nothing. I asked Stitch to get a bucket and - that'll teach the little twerp - she picked the smallest one. Stitch and I did a little dance and ran off to the pantry for breakfast. Syn ran along with us and looked rather annoyed when, after Stitch started eating, I obviously wasn't about to put down the Syn-share.

I walked back to the training room. Syn went ahead of me, growling furiously. She went to the buckets and started walking around them, examining them from every angle. She took half a step toward them, backed off growling, and walked to another angle where she tried it again. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, thinking about picking one up, and then circled again. After a minute of this, she reached carefully for one bucket, but lost her nerve at the last instant and circled again. The third time, she picked it up and brought it to me. For this she got a) my handful of kibble; b) a big schnoogie; and c) a run to the pantry for her breakfast.

Someone asked me yesterday why I'm using Stitch to sucker Syn into the game. Because it's a decent strategy anyway. Because it's working. And because I think Syn has the idea that the shaping session is rewarding her for NOT actually picking up the bucket. I'm being very careful about my timing, trying to move ahead at a decent pace without pushing her too hard, but I still feel that she thinks the idea is to get as close to the dangerous thing as she can without actually touching it.

11 months 20 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-11T10:40:46-07:00

We had a fun session this morning, based on ongoing fear (hers) and frustration (mine).

I thought we had the scary-bucket thing ironed out, but I keep sort of fixing it and then leaving it alone. When I leave it alone, it comes back. And Syn has developed the undesirable response of lying down when she doesn't want to do something (when I've pushed her too far).

She wants treats. I want the bucket. She looks at the treats, she looks at me, she lies down. Thinking back, I rewarded this the first few times by helping her when she lay down - going and touching the bucket, or picking it up and holding the handle for her to make it easier. And it worked to get her to retrieve the bucket. Also worked really well for teaching her to lie down at the first sign of any frustration.

Also we're doing a seminar this weekend and it occurs to me that we have done very little shaping in the last few months.

So I did something HIGHLY unusual - I actually thought about what I was doing.

PROBLEMS: Syn is afraid of the noise her bucket makes when she drops it. She may also be afraid of it moving. She is starting to see the dog dish as a cue to lie down and quit. She's thinking the same about the cue "Are you hungry?". She will sporadically retrieve her #2 bucket, more often when it's on carpet than when it's on tile.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: work on carpet until she's really comfortable with the noise. Get her to move many more objects. Don't put her in a situation where she'll quit when she sees the bucket. SHUT UP. And do more shaping.

First let me explain that I have 4 sizes of stainless dog bucket. The smallest one (#1) is about half a litre, but has a hook on it to hang it on a crate, so I don't use it for retrieving much. #2 is a "normal" dog bucket, about a litre. #3 is 2 litres. And #4 is a regular-sized bucket, good for watering llamas, carrying placentas to be buried, and washing cars. All have metal handles.

So we started on carpet this morning, with both Syn & Stitch in the room, Stitch on her mat. I found a cardboard box about a foot square, open, and put it about 4 feet away from me. Shaped Syn to go to it. She was pretty tentative at first and it took 2 or 3 minutes to get her to interact with the box. Once she got that, she would stop when she heard the click but not turn back toward me to get the treat. Don't know what that's about. Is she waiting for me to toss the treat? Waiting for it to materialize out of thin air in front of her? Strange. Then she started to continue to work through the click, but listening, so I'd click again and she'd come back for the treat. That went away after another couple of minutes. I was happy to see that she got more assertive as she went along. The first time she moved the box with her paw, she was startled and thought about whether to go back to it, but decided that it was soft enough and quiet enough that it didn't present a danger, so she went back and soon got to flipping it and poking it with her nose as well. Then she shoved it up a stair with her nose and it rolled back down and hit her (oooh, scary, she got hit by a 1 foot square cardboard box! My Little Pansy). I'd clicked for shoving it that hard, but she looked at me, looked at the box, and lay down.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to have a way for her to indicate that something is too difficult for her. That's fine. The problem is that she's giving up too easily. 1+1=2 2+1=3 3+1=TOO HARD CAN WE WATCH TV NOW? She needs more mental stamina, which a lot more shaping practise will definitely give her.

So when she quit, I put her on the mat and got Stitch out to work. Stitch hit that box like a freight train, poking, bopping, going around, rolling over. She batted it all over the room, wagging her tail and getting clicked. Syn got the odd treat for being on her mat. Pretty soon she was dying to get off the mat, so I put Stitch back on and brought Syn out to work again. Now she was really In The Game, and was soon rolling the box around almost as well as Stitch had been. Then I opened the flaps and she started batting them back and forth. Then a light bulb flashed over her head AHA! She grabbed a flap in her mouth and wrestled the box up the stairs and gave it to me! She got a treat and a big cuddle for that one. I tossed the box back down the step and she did it again. And again. Getting a box up a step is a lot more difficult than getting a bucket to me on a flat floor, but the box is quieter. She was really having a good time hauling that box back and forth, so I tossed out the #1 bucket instead of the box. No, thank you.

OK, back on the mat. Stitch, come and get that bucket. No problem. Aha, says I, let's make some noise!

I tossed the #2 bucket for Stitch, and when it hit the ground, Syn startled and jumped off the mat. I asked her to get back on the mat, rewarded Stitch for getting the bucket, and tossed it again. This time I was ready and rewarded Syn about a quarter second after the bucket hit the carpet and before she could jump off the mat. And rewarded Stitch for the bucket, and tossed it again. And so on for a couple of minutes until Syn was comfortable and starting to look eager to come and play too. I went up the bucket sizes, letting the bigger ones clatter down the steps, and even tossing them onto tile when Syn was looking comfortable.

Stitch back on the mat, Syn comes out. Get the box, yep. Get the #1 bucket, no problem, hey, that was fun! Get the #2 bucket, no problem! Get the #3 bucket, yeah! I can do this!

So I started tossing the #3 bucket around the room, with Syn cheerfully pouncing on it and hauling it back. I went back to the #1 bucket and tossed it on the tiles with no diminished cheer from Syn, then #2, and #3, all cheerfully returned.

She got so into the game that once I tossed the #2 bucket away from me AND SHE CAUGHT IT BY THE HANDLE AS IT WENT BY HER and brought it back to me, almost giggling she was so pleased with herself. A few tosses later it actually bumped her as it went by, which didn't bother her either.

So, a grand session. This evening we'll do it again - again starting from scratch and working up through the box.

11 months 16 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-07T17:52:18-07:00

The good, the bad, and the ugly - but mostly the good.

The good: we went to an obedience fun match last night. Everything was aMAZing. First, *I* was amazing. I remembered why I was there (unlike my performance last weekend at the agility match) - to teach Syn that competition rings are WAY FUN places, and NOT to worry about her performance.

Second, Syn was amazing. We did Novice AND Open. I've recently switched her focus in heeling from my face to my left hand at my waist, and, with very little practise (what else is new?) she's really getting it. Note to self: in situations like this, use soft treats. I took the wrong box and wound up at the match with nothing but plain kibble. Though Syn stayed focused and excited, the kibble took longer to get down than a bit of hot dog would have. So her heeling was grand. She stopped once to sniff a post on the figure 8, but we started again and she did it right the second time. We did a sit for examination rather than a stand, since we haven't worked on stand yet. Recall - excellent. Front, not so much, we'll have to work on that one of these weeks too. Sit stay, excellent. There were a couple of dogs that were breaking constantly, and Syn wasn't even remotely interested in doing anything but staying In The Game and holding her sit until I got back. Downstay - she offered me a Chill (rolled on her left side and looked dead) when I cued the down, and stayed that way for the entire 3 minutes and until I was back in position beside her.

It was a fairly long wait for her turn in Open. I hadn't bought a crate so she had to down beside me, so not a LOT of rest happening. She was a little more distracted when we got into the ring the second time, but held on. Heeling was very nice again - gave me chills, actually - as long as I remember that she's training and still needs treats to do it. Retrieve on flat was great. Retrieve over the high jump - the first try she wound up very close to the edge of the jump. You could see the thoughts going through her head - go the long way back over the jump? Or go the short way back around it? We've put a fair bit of effort into proofing the jump, and she's never actually had the "evil" thought before, and she made the wrong choice. Got no smile or treat for it, and did it perfectly the second time. Drop on recall- Yes! Lovely. We didn't do the longer out of sight stays because - well, because it was a long evening, she's a puppy, and she's not ready to do them right yet. EXcellent evening.

The bad: we tried testing her L3 Lazy Leash - going away and back to me with another handler - and she failed - well, not dismally but we obviously have a fair amount of work to do on that before we test it again.

And the ugly: she chewed up the rubber mat beside the grooming table, and robo-vac gets stuck on the battered remains, so I threw it away. Then I asked Syn to jump up not the table and her feet slipped. She hit the table edge right on her diaphragm, with her front end on top and her back end hanging off. She yelped for over a minute, and peed when I touched her. What a little pansy. I petted her until she shut up and then we went back into the kitchen and did some fun behaviours. She thought that was fun. Then we went back in the dog room. I put down another rubber mat and asked her to jump up again. She was reluctant to follow me into the room, but once I asked her to jump up she was OK to do it. Gave her a good cuddle on the table and put her back on the floor. She was OK to get back on this morning, and didn't worry about coming into the room with me. A good reminder to me to consider safety all the time.

Gosh I like this puppy. We are having SUCH a good time.

11 months 15 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-06T11:22:23-07:00

This morning I "hid" the two dog buckets (big scary one and little unscary one) in the next room, started robo-vac, put Stitch on a down stay nearby, and asked Syn if she was hungry. I'll take that as a yes. She handled the vacuum very nicely, she remember that she had to get both of them to get the job done, Stitch didn't bother her at all, and the buckets were fine until she swung the big one around and hit some furniture, but she recovered fast and kept her tail up. Very nice performance of all the tough factors involved. Video here

11 months 14 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-05T13:37:04-07:00

Syn and I went to the vet today. She had a wonderful time while she was there. She kept offering to hop up on the very high examining table while I was talking to the vet and I had to keep putting my hand in between her and the table and saying No. She'd settle back for a minute and then start volunteering to jump again. The vet got kissed all over, loved up the staff, displayed her excellent Handling behaviours and generally had a very good time. We took some training time in the waiting room - heeling, sits, downs, Chill. Excellent. Walked in and out on a loose lead.

We stopped at the dog park on the way home. Oops. Her teenage self isn't quite as assured as her late-puppy self was. She really wanted to play with a young Lab, a young German Shepherd, and an old Basset, but in the end then old Basset was the only one that seemed trustworthy. She'd run like a fiend after or up to the two younger dogs, then peel off at the last second and run back to say hello to me, pretending she was only going to look all along. The Lab chased her back to me a few times where she sat between my legs and worried a bit. Obviously we need a bit more strange-dog time. Nice loose leash to and from the park, though, and good comes while she was there. And some nice retrieves. She'll be spending a week in a household with four or five strange dogs soon, and I know they all have good communication skills, so that should help.

And when we got home, a 4 yo and her mom stopped by for a visit. The kid loved dogs but was excitable and squealy. She wanted to throw a toy for Syn, but was too scared (and squealy) to take it from her when she brought it back, so I had to take it from her, give it to the kid, and then wait for her to bring it back again. At one point the mom was trying to talk to me, the kid was squealing and throwing, and Syn got a bit overwhelmed. I didn't quite see but heard her little tooth-snapping yip as she told the kid to back off. Excellent response from Syn, great communication, but not socially acceptable. Shame on me for letting it get that far, particularly just after she'd had to defend herself several times from the young Lab. Mom wasn't upset at all but told the kid to settle down. I held Syn's head for a second and got her to settle as well, and then they went back to playing with me paying much better attention.

11 months 13 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2012-01-04T21:13:51-07:00

The holiday season is over and life is getting back to normal. I've been feeling like I was rushing the entry into Level 3 before the holidays, so I retested a few of the duration behaviours from L2 and started over again in Level 3.

Syn did just as well this time as she did the first time. We went through the first 6 behaviours, everything we could except things which require other people, and we'll get to them this weekend - there's an obedience fun match coming up. She had the most problem with the early retrieve behaviours. She's good at the finished product but apparently we glossed over the Syn-and-me-holding-things-together part, so we'll be working that up for a week or so. L3 Target is coming along nicely. She can paws-up on pretty much anything, horizontal or vertical, including the back of a rocking chair (which rocked when her paws landed on it - she looked like a kite surfer), but with no duration unless I'm petting her or my lure hand stays over her head.

The nervousness she displayed over retrieving the dog buckets has disappeared due to that pre-meal Miracle Minute. The connection between getting fed and bringing me the bucket really clicked about 4 days ago. All I have to do is THINK about feeding dogs and she's running to bring me buckets with enthusiasm and confidence.

The other idea that has really gelled while she learned to retrieve scary buckets is the idea of having an entire job to do. I usually see this begin on the retrieve, when the dog tries to hand me an object and I fumble the catch and drop it (or she drops it before I cue the hand-off and I pretend I didn't have a chance to catch it). For a moment the dog will look at me waiting for her click, and then it hits her - the job isn't done! She doesn't get the click until the object is in my hand. So she picks it up again and holds it more firmly until she gets the cue.

In retrieving the buckets, Syn has put the finished-job idea into meals. I need TWO buckets, one for each dog, before I can put food in either one. Syn will bring me one, look at me for a moment, and then enthusiastically search out and bring me the second one.

Stitch and Scuba were both very careful to bring me the easiest item first (perhaps on the off chance that one would be enough this time and they wouldn't have to bring me the more difficult object after all) but Syn brings the first one she finds - the smaller, easier one, or the bigger, heavier, noisier one - and then goes back for the other one.

Her retrieving is so good, in fact, that she gave me a good lesson in changing the subject last weekend. There was an agility fun match and, since she can do all the obstacles (except the teeter and weaves, which I just avoided), I assumed she could do a course (which I have assumed before in class and should certainly know better by now) of 18 obstacles. There were 4 jumps and then a tunnel, and that was a long enough course for her to decide that since I wasn't clicking but just kept telling her to do the next thing and the next thing, I probably didn't know what I was doing, so instead of continuing on the course, she started retrieving the traffic cones marking the course. Once she started it was quite difficult to convince her to stop - made worse by the fact that she had both me and the audience laughing out loud as she paraded around the ring carrying cones and growling loudly to let us all know how pleased she was with her solution. I should have stayed for a second round but my asthma was acting up and I needed to go home. If I HAD stayed, I would have done the first 3 obstacles one at a time - jump, yes, treat. Jump, yes, treat. Jump, yes, treat. Then the next six or so I'd do 2 at a time - jump, tunnel, yes, treat. Jump, tire, yes, treat. And so on, and then try 3 in a row - or maybe just finish the course 2 at a time. And I WILL remember that she doesn't know how to do courses!

10 months 26 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-18T20:50:11-07:00

Alright, I'm feeling a bit more myself today. Syn, of course, feels… Synful. Full of herself, as always. Or, another way of starting today's blog would be:

Now that I've gotten over other people trying to kill their dogs, I'm ready to strangle mine. This afternoon a friend looked out in the back yard and found Little Miss and Stitch gleefully opening Christmas presents. No, not THEIR Christmas presents. One has a tooth-sized hole in it. The others just need to be re-wrapped. Whee. Wrapping is my favourite part of the holidays. Not.

This evening we moved on with Level 3. Except for a few behaviours and Comeafters that involve other people and going (brrrr) outside, we're all the way up to L3 Crate.

Sit from Down is good - when she's listening. When she's not listening she just throws the next thing at me, but we're working on that.

The out of sight L3 Downs were excellent. She even offered me Chill (over on her side - AKA Relax) and didn't bother rolling up into a regular Down when I came back to her.

Hard to work Lazy Leash in the house, and it was cold and dark outside so we worked on heeling instead. I'm putting my left hand at my waist and having her stare fixedly at the hand while she's moving to distinguish heel from LL. She's getting it. Not ready to give it to me in class (or out in the world?) yet, but at home it's going well. The neat thing is that once we get the duration on heeling, she'll be ready to whip through Novice AND Open obedience.

We tried all kinds of different things for L3 Retrieve - a pen, a clicker, an intact wrapped present, a shoe, a big purse, a dog bucket, a sock. The most difficult thing I asked her to hold was my finger. She was quite sure that was a mistake but we shaped it up to a fairly decent hold. Once in a while when I asked her to do it, though, she'd dive to the front hall to get a leash - apparently holding a leash is a lot safer idea than holding a finger.

L3 Target is Paws Up. I've been having her come up on me to get her collar on and off, but haven't actually taught the behaviour, so we started cold on this one. She got it immediately and enjoyed doing it. The only vertical surface I tried her on was me, though, so far. I figured eating presents was enough for one day, we didn't have to add scratching the walls.

We had a bit of supper left over so we did 20 reps of Watch. I introduced Look a little too soon after Watch and while her Look (at something else) is pretty good, her Watch (me) is a bit iffy. She's not quite sure WHAT she's supposed to be Watching.

Then we did some shaping practise. One of the things I've been wanting to work on is the idea that where I'm looking is what she should be working on. Stitch got this right away, but Syn hasn't figured it out yet. I sat facing east and shaped her to put her muzzle on a package, then I ostentatiously turned and faced west. She tried touching the package four or five times, and when that didn't work she did Paws Up on three chairs and the coffee table. When that didn't work, she tried a distance Down, thought about her life for a minute or two, and then came around in front of me to ask what was going on - and of course got a click. Then I shaped her to look behind the Christmas tree and when she had that, I turned and faced east again. Another round of Paws Up and a Down… oh! Wait! In FRONT of you! And she had it. Clever little tyke.

10 months 25 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-17T18:39:41-07:00

Tonight I'm in a depressed funk. Not because of Syn - she's grand.

This afternoon we went to our Open obedience class. It's chock full of dogs getting yelled at, people with very crabby voices, and me and one other trainer speaking in normal tones to our dogs. That didn't bother me - it's what the dogs are used to. What DID bother me was one dog who broke a sit-stay, and was corrected (on his pinch collar). He pulled his lips back in a big nervous grin/pant and came forward to apologize - thus breaking the stay again, and was again corrected for the grievous error. And again he broke, and again he was corrected. And again. And again. And again. And again. As he was approached for another correction, he was crouched on the ground (creeping forward, the scum bucket) feebly wagging his tail, and the instructor yelled "Stop wagging your tail!" before correcting him again.

I'm not sure whether I'm going to get tossed out of this class for butting in and telling the instructor why he kept breaking, or whether I'm going to quit on my own. My stomach is upset and I don't feel at all Christmassy this evening.

Syn broke her sit stay a couple of times. I said (quietly) "no, no. That's not how we do it.", led her back to her spot, asked for the stay again, and then Laddered her up to a full 3-minute stay with me across the room. How can they not see? How can they not see?

10 months 20 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-12T10:24:22-07:00

Wow, this dog training stuff is TOO much fun, especially when I get such marvellous proof of how well it works! My vacuum is in the shop - and appears to be settling in nicely, planning on staying awhile - so I splurged (that holiday thing where "since I'm spending money on everybody else I might as well spend some on myself") and bought a robot vacuum.

It was all charged up this morning and ready to go, so I pushed it's little button and got set to work on getting Syn comfortable with it. First thing I noticed, it's a lot quieter than the upright, so Syn's already more at ease with it, though it's kind of scary when it appears to be hunting her down. Here's a few minutes of her getting to know it. Second thing I noticed is that I'm so busy watching the little vac do its job that I'm having a hard time marking Syn's behaviour at the right time, so a lot of my Yesses are late.

But the excellent part is when Stitch came in and found us training. She knows she's not supposed to butt in, so she stays back and watches. At one point, she lay down to watch. The contrast between Syn just learning to handle the world around her, and 7-year-old Stitch having been through it all before - even well beyond wearing the "I'm a trained dog" t-shirt - is very funny. "Vacuum cleaner? I was here first!"

We have done a bit of training besides this, and went to another Open obedience class with Syn the other day - where she was once again remarkable. She did get away from me once when she hared off across the room to retrieve someone else's dumbbell - but I think I could have gotten her back if I had given her a dumbell-Zen cue and called her back rather than just standing there blubbering "Syn! Syn! Syn!". "Yeah," she replied. "I'm just gonna get this dumbell for you and then I'll be right there!" Oh, and she forgot how to stay, so I spent part of the class playing Chutes and Ladders with sit stays. Dear little Tat.

10 months 16 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-08T16:28:30-07:00

Well, we got past the scary-bucket problem pretty quickly. I just sat back and shaped her from the beginning - look at the bucket, look again, take a step toward it, take another. I started with the bucket on the rug so it wouldn't make too much scary noise, and when she was ready I put it on the tile floor. No problem now - in fact it's hard to keep her from grabbing it just because it's in the same room she is.

Since she was doing a good job of getting over scary noises, and the vacuum cleaner happened to be sitting nearby, I started working on that. We worked first with it just standing still being as unscary as a vacuum cleaner can be, and she was a bit tentative but got into the spirit of sniffing, looking, touching… at about 1 minute in the video I rejoined Lumpers Anonymous and asked her to Go Around, which she wasn't ready to do. I'm sorry to see that she immediately lay down - her version of Take This Job And Shove It, and not only did I see her do it, but I asked her to Go Around again. And then I DEMANDED that she Go Around (earth to Sue, come in please), after which I realized what I was doing and shut the camera off to play with her for a minute. While the camera was off I led her around it a couple of times and when we came back, she was fine with it - both with touching it AND with going around it. End of session.

The next session, I started with the vacuum turned on, and we started right back at the beginning, look at it, think about it, take a step, take another. I tried to shape her to go around and finally got her to go around it once - at least this time I was prepared to let her make the decision. I can see a fair bit of "I know you think I should go around that thing but I also know it's going to eat me if I do" going on, but she stays In The Game and keeps trying. End of session.

The last session of the day, she came back ready to go around the vacuum. She's still not comfortable doing it - you can see the hesitation each time just as she commits to going behind it - but there's no external (read: nothing from ME) pressure to go around it, she can decide not to but she doesn't. Good session, we'll work that again in another couple of days. I'd like her to retrieve it?

10 months 14 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-06T12:55:40-07:00

Boy, howdy.

My name is Sue Eh and I'm a lumper. Chartered member of Lumpers Anonymous.

A couple of weeks ago I worked a bit on getting Syn to retrieve a dog bucket with her dinner in it. I got her to retrieve the bucket a couple of times, then I did a couple of Hand Zens, and then I put the kibble in the bucket. I thought she was slightly afraid of the bucket.

Well, today I noticed that when I ask her to get her bucket, she confidently and cheerfully backs away from it and sits oh-so-politely at my side. She's doing Bucket Zen. No way no how she's going near that bucket unless I put my hand on it and specifically hold it out to her. Did I tell her not to touch the bucket? I THOUGHT I was telling her not to touch the kibble IN the bucket, but of course, not speaking English all that well, that's not what she heard.

So we spent half her breakfast shaping her to look at the bucket, go toward the bucket, touch the bucket. When she finally managed to pick it up, we had a huge party and ran to the pantry to put the rest of breakfast in the bucket.

Welcome to the Flat Forehead School Of Dog Training.

By the way, she started something cute yesterday. When I suggest it might be breakfast time, she starts leading my to the pantry, talking a mile a minute and looking back over her shoulder to be sure I'm coming along.

10 months 11 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-03T16:57:03-07:00

Syn had a her first Open obedience class this afternoon. I was worried that she wouldn't be able to keep up with the class - well, worried isn't the right word, since I would work her at her own level no matter what, but I wouldn't want to hold the class up waiting for her to do something (or more likely, lower the jumps or otherwise take more time to take our turns). I thought I might have to drop out. She IS only 10 months old, with a puppy's enthusiasm and attention span.

First things first. We started with heeling. Her heeling isn't perfect. I need to concentrate on keeping her eyes on me - when her eyes wander off, she gets wider and wider as we go along. And, since we were doing conformation in the same building 2 weeks ago, she's not sitting automatically when I stop. On the other hand, she was the only one off leash and the only one not getting corrections. Some were (sigh) on pinch collars. Syn was trucking along cheerfully doing a grand job with a big grin on her face - in between gazing around like a hick in the big city. When we did figure 8s, I discovered that we need to work more on speeding up when she's on the outside, but her sidestepping inside turns were a thing of beauty.

Then we did stays while one by one we worked retrieve over the high jump. Her stays are not excellent yet. She would like to assume that I wasn't talking to her when I said "Stay" and instead meant for her to come right along with me. BUT when I asked her for a down and stay, this is what she gave me:

Yep, that's a Relax. 10 months old and she's offering me a Relax. In public. And stayed that way for 2 minutes with me 20 feet away. Wow! She couldn't hold it while I walked around her, but all she did was roll into a normal down position (like the dog on the left in the photo).

I thought I'd try a 3-board broad jump just once to see how much work I'd have to do on it - not much, apparently. I treated it like an agility obstacle. I put her back about 15 feet from it, "led out" to it, and turned as I would in agility to send her over it. She soared. And then ran back to me all excited - "I did it! Did you see me? I jumped right over it! Did you see? Did you see?" And twice more.

On to the retrieve over the high jump. We worked with a jump about 16 inches high. She was thrilled to do this too, and I spent some time tossing the dumbbell off to one side or the other so she had to curve her path to be sure to go over the jump.

Finally, the drop on recall. No problem, she's been doing that for 7 months. And that was our class. She was a long way from "keeping up" with the class. The other way around, really. She needs work on duration, on distance, and a bit on distraction, but she's got difficulty cased. She needs to practise these things until she's doing them because she knows how to do them, not because I'm giving her extra body language cues to help her understand what I want. But she's got the exercises cased. She knows how to do this. Heck, she's in Level 3 now, she can do ANYTHING!

10 months 9 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-12-01T12:27:18-07:00

For breakfast we worked a little more on the distraction of kibble on the rug. She's not ready to wander over the food as if it isn't there, but she's getting closer. Her panting this morning is because the sun is shining in the windows and the room is hot. Her tail is wagging with eagerness to play the game, even though it's still tough to do.

And I guess I have to turn my phone sideways to get videos going the right way.

One of the earliest reps from this morning. I like my voice in this one, I'm inviting her to perform rather than trying to use my voice to force her. Also this is an excellent illustration of the whole tossing-things-on-the-floor discussion. A little Floor Zen easily teaches the dog that constant floor-diving isn't a way of life. Syn has the scattered kibble on the rug, and I'm also tossing kibble to her as her reward following "Yes". Notice the marvellous place where she eats (what she thought was) the treat I tossed, but very obviously doesn't eat the next one she sees, which is one of the Zen kibbles. Clever puppy! If you didn't notice that while watching, you could tell from my voice how pleased I was with that little tidbit of behaviour. This morning her face is much more relaxed and happy.

Here we're working on L3 Sit - dog sits from a down 2 feet away from you - Comeafters - with a distraction. Also Step 4 - down from a sit 5 feet away from you - Comeafters - threefers, a down, a sit, another down. Plus L3 Come Step 1 - dog comes 5 feet with a distraction. Also Floor Zen and getting her comfortable with the whole idea. Watch here. My voice is a little demanding, which I don't like - she was having a little difficulty hearing what I said with the distraction. Yes, treats on the floor make a dog go deaf.

Interesting little glitch in my brain. Every time I get to Level 3, I have a niggling little thought telling me my dog isn't ready for it. Like there's going to be a huge chasm between L2 behaviours and L3 behaviours. Like leaving Grade 8 and heading right to university. Don't know why I don't trust the author more… Syn is clearly ready for Level 3! (also I'm still gobsmacked that my baby puppy is ready for L3).

10 months 8 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-30T21:02:23-07:00

I've been away for a week. Tonight we got back into Level 3 (Level 3!). L3 Focus Step 4 - Dog holds eye contact for 10 seconds with you not looking at the dog. That was fun, and pleasantly surprising. Not as difficult as I thought it would be. It took us 4 clicks to get up to 10 seconds, based mostly on the idea that when I want to shape her I look where I want her to be. This is also the cue I use when I want her to Look at something rather than Watch me. After 4 clicks she had it, though. We'll see tomorrow if she's got it well enough to pass testing.

Syn giving me 10 seconds of Focus while I look in the mirror.
Her tail is wagging furiously.

We moved on to L3 Come. Step 1: Dog comes 5 feet with distractions. Late evening at home out in the country - I couldn't think of any distractions other than kibble on the floor, so I spread some. She couldn't come to me through it. She tried going around the coffee tablet get away from it, but it was spread there too. I backed up to something she knew - straightforward advanced Floor Zen, which she's pretty darn good at. Watch how great she is at it - click here to see a video. Why are these videos on their sides? I have no idea, sorry.

Once I was sure she could do that comfortably, I started asking her to Come through the kibble, but it was still very difficult. Click here to watch her first attempt.

I put a treat target in her face and led her through the minefield a couple of times, then just walked through with her a couple of times, and after five or six of those, she was able to do it - but still not comfortable. We'll try again tomorrow.

I'm glad to be home. I missed the little pumpkin.

10 months 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-23T19:48:13-07:00

Ten months old, and Little Miss moved on to Level 3 with a bang. Starting at the beginning, we zipped right through L3 Zen (dog doesn't dash through open door, waits 30 seconds with door open, waits 1 minute while I carry stuff in and out of the house, other doors, life situations. She passed everything with no trouble and NO CUE. What a good puppy! The only thing left is getting someone else to do the open door with her.

Good time to reflect on how far she's come and who she's turning into.

Physically, she's growing into herself slowly but surely. I think she's going to be a very pretty dog when she grows up - and maybe retain some of the Red Fraggle/Gund quality everyone comments on. She's a sound dog, except for a little turnout in the rear which comes, I think, from growing so fast. She's definitely getting it under control as she gets more muscle. Her tailset and topline are grand, great shoulders, and good angulation in the rear. She could use a bit heavier muzzle, but her skull is nice and wide. And she really is cute.

Mentally - well, she's smart and willing and cheerful. She trusts me, she's willing to do almost anything for a treat, and she's got good mental stamina. She's naturally a bit leery of things moving under her - the first time I moved the cart she was riding in at 6 months, she leaped out - and of big or rowdy other dogs - though she does love Giant Schnauzers and Dobermans (but Goldens are a little scary) - but she has excellent bounce-back. She gets over scares quickly and easily and is willing to believe me when I tell her she can do something even if she thinks maybe she can't.

She needs more practise being shaped, she doesn't have a lot of stamina for guessing games, though she's willing to try. All in all, she feels like she's ahead of where Stitch was at the same age. Maybe she isn't - I'll have to go back and read Stitch's blog for the same time frame - but for sure she doesn't have several of Stitch's vices that we had to work to overcome (chasing cats comes readily to mind).

So. 8 months of work, and I'm pleased with the results. Not to mention that my puppy's very cute and cuddly.

9 months 29 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-20T15:55:11-07:00

We tested out Level 2 Communication this morning, which is the last of Level 2 except the trick. Syn did the full retrieve, including bring and hold, of the bucket with her kibble in it, and did it with her tail wagging, but her approach to the bucket is still tentative - the whole crouch-down-and-leave-your-back-feet-way-back-THERE-where-they'll-be-safe thing - so I want to work it at least one more day to get her comfortable with it. Chicklet, the bucket will NOT bite you when you start to pick it up. Actually, she's comfortable and happy with the entire rest of the behaviour, so the creeping-up-to-the-bucket business looks very strange, but I want to get rid of it. A dog doing a trick (or anything else, for that matter) shouldn't look like part of the process might get her killed.

We went to a drop-in conformation class this afternoon. Bear in mind that it's been 3 months since we did any conformation, and even then it was sort of a puppy playtime event, culminating in one win and nothing else, except a good time. So I wasn't expecting much - nothing, really - from her this afternoon. Well! It took four or five voice clicks to get her to stop thinking about plunking her little tushy hard and fast on the floor, but once she realized I was clicking for standing, something quite amazing happened. She stood. She stood across in front of me, leaned on the lead when I gave her the chance, and stared fixedly at the bait in my right hand. Occasionally I let off the pressure on the collar so I could use my leash hand to move a foot or put her tail right, and she stood very nicely while I did it. She let both a male and female "judge" go over her without any worry. When we started moving, I put an ounce of pressure on the leash and Little Miss went readily out into the pressure and trucked around half a body-length in front of me, studiously staring where she was going instead of at me.

Gosh, I barely remember teaching her any of this, let alone doing any significant amount of work on it, yet here she is, 3 months later, not only remembering it and giving it to me, but, IMO, doing it considerably better than she did when I first taught it to her.

Time out: Dogs were going nuts out in the yard, that's par for the course. Must have spotted a snowshoe hair or a porcupine. Then the llamas started hollering their alarm calls as well and I went outside to find a moose wandering by. We generally have one or two male yearlings travelling through per year, but this wasn't a yearling. It was a full-grown male with a full rack of antlers. I locked up the dogs and went out in the truck to see if I could get close enough to take a picture but it was too dark. You have to be very, very careful driving near moose, they tend to be a bit fussy about their personal space:

When the youngsters go by, you get an idea of how powerful an animal this is - they're 7 feet tall - but an adult male with a rack is a totally different critter, being that tall and the weight of two horses. He eventually wandered off and I came back and let the dogs out into the yard again, but ten minutes later I had to bring them back in as they were revving up again and a moose who doesn't like noise could easily go over or through my 5 foot dog fence to shut them up. What a magnificent creature. I always feel the day has been blessed when I get to see one.

Anyway, back to Syn. I happened to catch a look at her in a mirror in the training hall and hey, she looks GREAT in her new retriever trim, and she's really grown into all that leg she was having difficulty knowing what to do with 3 months ago, and she's got the attitude - I think I may have a show dog on my hands. Makes me more excited about showing her next spring. And excited about getting into Level 3. And excited about seeing a moose. It may be a good time to clean out the fridge with all this extra adrenalin...

9 months 28 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-19T20:27:08-07:00

Tonight we got Down To Business and tested a large number of Level 2 behaviours.

She has an Open obedience class coming up, and they're going to be practising 1-minute sit and down stays, and she hasn't done either one, so I'll have to lead her gently into them, but tonight she passed L2 Sit and Down, which includes a 1-minute down at 20 feet. We had most of the others passed already, but the one that surprised me was the Relax. I expected Steps 1 through 3 to be fine, but Step 4 - dog settles for 1 minute, gets excited, and settles again for 1 minute - I was anticipated problems with. She's good on the time, but it usually takes me several cues to get her to roll over onto her side, and then of course a few seconds for her to stop wagging her tail. That wouldn't cut it in the testing department.

I read the requirements, then turned to her. She was in the wrong position. She only goes over on her left side, and her left side was up against the step. Well, that's what testing is about, I guess, less than ideal conditions. So I cued "Chill" and BAM. She tried to go over, but as I said, she was in the wrong place, so she solved the problem by going straight down, dropping her hips away from the step, and then resting her muzzle on her left paw - which was as far over on her left as she could get, under the circumstances. And with that one cue, she stayed that way for the full minute. Zowie! At the end of the minute I got her up and tossed a toy and some treats around for a minute, then cued Chill again, with pretty much the same results.

Which only leaves Communication, which she's passed but I'd like to do a little more work on before I leave it, and her trick, which has now definitely evolved into retrieving the bucket. Yesterday she learned to hold the handle in her mouth with kibble in the bucket. Today we had to back up some to continue the behaviour. First I took the kibble out, because it was plain she was going to drop the bucket at some point. What worries her is that the bucket swings, which makes it feel like a live thing hanging off her mouth. That makes it very difficult to walk forward - having a large living swinging bucket blocking her path. She quit a couple of times, waiting for me to put my hand on it to control it while she held it, so I did that. Then I replaced that bucket with a smaller one that I had padded the handle of (good ol' duct tape). That went better, but we've got a few more days of work before she'll be anywhere near confident of it. And then, tada, on to Level 3!

Oh, and that whole I'm-afraid-of-the-dog-dryer thing is long gone. Today I had trouble keeping her on the floor. Every time I walk past the grooming table she's on it, ready to be worked on.

10 weeks again

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-02T09:33:46-06:00

Excellent start to the morning - and without me having to think too much.

Ron took her out at 6:30 and put her back in her crate. I slept until 9, and she
sat in her crate admiring her toenails until I got up. Marvelous. I wanted to
push her envelope a bit. She's had a few accidents I haven't seen happen, she
knows where the door is now, and her puppy vaginitis seems to have cleared up,
so I want to add a tiny TINY bit of stress to the "don't drop it in the house
even if I didn't open the door yet" idea. She waited while I got up, got
dressed, came downstairs. She ran ahead of me to the door - and squatted before
I got there.

I gave her an AACK! (I know, I hate it to, but just one, OK?) and she stood up
immediately - maybe 2 drops of urine on the tile - and asked me to hurry up and
open the door. I did, she went out and peed. Good pup!

She got part of her breakfast working Zen with Stitch. Dogs DO understand the
idea of fairness (scientists have just decided that. Trainers knew it all along)
and I've done this with all my dogs. It's a wonderful way to teach them not to
butt in on another dog's meal, not to try pushing you off another dog - in other
words, not to act "jealous" - and to help them feel that they and their meals
are safe even if there are other dogs diving around at the same time.

I get a handful of each dog's kibble. The dogs are in front of me. Stitch sits
automatically. So does Syn (note name has been shortened in practise if not in
reality). I say "This is for STITCH" and hand Stitch a kibble. WAHOO, thinks
Syn, and jumps on Stitch to try to get some. Stitch knows the game and swallows
her kibble. I say "This is for STITCH" and hand her another. Syn jumps on her
harder. Stitch swallows. I say "This is for STITCH" and hand her another. Syn
jumps harder. Stitch swallows - rather smugly, I think. I say "This is for
STITCH" and hand her another. Syn sits. I say "This is for SYN" and go to hand
it to her, but she jumps on me, so I say "This is for STITCH" and hand one to
Stitch. Syn sits. It takes her 5 tries before she manages to stay sitting while
I hand it to her - and even then I'm being generous and defining
butt-on-the-floor as a sit rather than front-paws-also.

Soon we develop a nice rhythm. "This is for STITCH", hand one to Stitch. "This
is for SYN", hand one to Syn. "This is for STITCH", hand one to Stitch. "This is
for SYN", hand one to Syn.

After the next 5, her paws are on the ground as well. She's trusting me to
deliver it to her, and trusting Stitch not to try to get it away from me when I
do.

Even better, her tail starts to wag as soon as I say "This is for STITCH" and
she's so excited she's almost quivering. This is what I want her to know: when
another dog gets something, it's a virtual guarantee that you're going to get
something too if you just be sure you give me what I want.

The second have of breakfast I put in her dish and gave her on the grooming
table where she was a bit frightened yesterday. No problems today. I thought
about turning on one of the tools, but decided she needed a few days of getting
used to the table before I set her up to work on the noise again.

Strange noises seem to be a small problem of hers. I say problem because she's
reacted badly to several unusual noises. I say small because she's just a bit
scared and her recovery is excellent - even the recovery from the first or
second day when Stitch came in the dog door with a loud THWAP THWAP and made her
scream and run. Since she's a bit reactive to noises, I want to be sure that I'm
aware of them and not messing up something I'm trying to teach her with a scary
noise. For instance, I won't try to get her used to the clipper noise and being
on the grooming table at the same time, and I won't try to teach her to go
through the dog door while I'm trying to housetrain her. She could very easily
decide that going outside isn't worth it if she has to deal with the noisy dog
door at the same time.

And then the MOST amazing thing happened - she scratched at the door! I got all
excited and let her out. When we got back in, I hung the bells right where she'd
scratched and 10 minutes later, she rang the bells! Partly she wanted to go out
and play, but she peed while she was out there, and I'm thrilled. On the way
back in, she bumped the bells with her nose quite deliberately and I got excited
and wrestled her a bit.

Later in the day we had a brief shower together with me holding her. No problem
except for the whining - sounded like Stitch when she was a puppy - "That's skin
temperature! It's raining on me! I hate that! Eeeeuuuwwww!" But after a minute
she shut up and enjoyed the cuddle.

Then we went for a swim. Well, no, I went for a wade. Sync went for a
safe-in-arms wet ride. She wasn't thrilled but she wasn't upset. Water was about
92 degrees. I gradually let her back legs float free, but she got a little
concerned when she thought her front legs might be going too. Ah well, her HAIR
floated at least! And she got lots of ham. Another shower to rinse off any
chemicals, and then a long, warm towel-dry and nap. Awww, she feels so soft!
Amazing how dirty a puppy can get doing nothing more disgusting than wrestling
on the floor.

9 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-31T09:32:29-06:00

I didn't feel much like working today - tired and cranky. That usually happens when I'm supposed to be doing taxes - learned helplessness at it's finest. On top of that, I put my laptop on top of a trashcan next to my chair and the dogs ran into the trashcan, knocking the computer to the tile floor and killing the hard drive. Mid-afternoon, though, I heard that I'll have it back tomorrow with a new hard drive, under warranty! If it wasn't for the taxes, I'd feel grand.

Sync has had a spectacular day. No accidents in the house, and she's actually coming and staring at me when she needs to go out. Or maybe she's just staring at me hoping I'll give her something to eat, but she pees every time I let her out and the behaviour looks real. She and Stitch even had a chance to play out side a bit, and they made the most of it. I didn't have the oomph to work on the bells again today.

Tired and cranky translates into "shopping", so I went out this morning and bought Sync a new, bigger doughnut-shaped cushy bed and an adult-sized soft-sided crate that I can stand on it's end to make it smaller for her when I leave her alone now. I put the bed in the crate and shaped her to go to mat on/in it. That went well. Then I brought her back to her original mat and asked her to down on it several times, after which she offered it to me numerous times. Once in a while she decided I wasn't talking about the mat - since I wasn't clicking for just being on the mat - and I had to start from the beginning to reassure her that I was, indeed, talking about the mat.

Then we did eye contact, with me standing up this time. Once in a while a treat landed somewhat behind me, but I didn't turn to look at her and she had no trouble coming back around to find my eyes again. Clever little tad.

I said last week I needed to do her toenails, but I didn't get to them today. One of the worst things you can do is concentrate on doing toenails on a pup that doesn't know how to have her toenails done. The best approach is to concentrate on TEACHING the pup to have her nails done instead. Yes, it might be a long time before the nails get done, but you're not going to spend the rest of her life fighting over her nails.

I put her on the table and we had a little giggle. No problem. I picked up her feet and gave her a treat for each one. No problem. I turned the Dremel on to a very low setting. WHOA! PROBLEM! She really didn't want to stay on the table with that noise, but I had a spoon of peanut butter ready. Smeared the peanut butter on the wall (tile wall, thinking ahead!!) and she promptly forgot about the Dremel noise. While she cheerfully washed the wall, I ground each of her nails. She backed off once, but I didn't have to turn the Dremel off and easily lured her back to the wall.

As long as she was busy working on the peanut butter wall, I turned off the Dremel and turned on the clippers. Oh. Another problem. She tried to get off the table again. I scooped her into my lap and cuddled her with the running clippers on the table, peanuting all the time. When she settled down, I could finally pet her hip with the clippers, but didn't try to clip her. I shaved her back end before I brought her home, but she was too young to bother about it then. Her back legs and feet haven't been done yet, though.

And we played. And played. And played. With each other and with Stitch. What a cute puppy.

9 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-30T09:31:44-06:00

Finally corralled Ron long enough to move on to L1 Come Step 2. Interesting (she pouted). At first Sync couldn't hear Ron calling her at all. He had to get quite close and make silly noises to get her to look away from me at all. Once she figured out that we both had food, she couldn't wait to get to him. In fact she was RUNNING to him and trotting to me, and a couple of times she turned from me to go back to him, whereas I had to call her each time. Fine. The ungrateful little wretch can be HIS dog! I think what it means is that I'm the one who's been forcing her to go out in the cold to pee 50 times a day and he's the one that cuddles (yes, I cuddle too, but it's clearly not overcoming cold pads).

*I* cut llama toenails, file teeth, shear, worm, etc. I say "Honey, would you bring the llamas into the barn before you go to work? I want to do some toenails today." And HE says "Why don't you just call them? They'll come running!"

What I try to tell him is that they come running to HIM because he goes out every morning and passes around the oats. *I* go out and cut toenails so when I call, they look at me, chew their cud, and wander nonchalantly off in the opposite direction.

However, didn't Ron do something remarkable this morning!

(Here's the really neat part - he said he was "proofreading" the Training Levels books, but ever since he read them he's been MUCH more interested in helping with the puppy.)

I've been dutifully trudging out the front door in my jacket and boots, leash and harness 50 times a day. I put her out the back door once last week and she got lost and I had to go out in my socks and rescue her.

This morning Ron led her and Stitch to the back door (wearing his slippers in case she needed to be rescued again) - successfully. When I asked her an hour later if she had to go outside, she got all excited and headed toward the door! When I got there and opened the door, she galloped right out in the snow (snowing. Again.) and did her thing. Whee!

And then, while I was getting ready to go out and momentarily not paying attention, she went to the BACK door and pooped! After going there 3 times in 10 days! Puppy having an accident? Dang. Puppy having an accident at the door to the dog yard? PRICELESS! Now I know we're both on the same page cleanliness-wise, we just need to discuss communication. So we started on the bells. I got some Cheez Whiz, put a dab on the bells, and clicked and gave her an extra lick from my finger when she made them ring by licking them. First we'll talk about ringing the bells, THEN we'll talk about ringing the bells to go out. I hope we can catch up to Emme Lou B!

9 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-29T09:30:35-06:00

Missed a day - between me and Stitch and Sync, we managed to drop my laptop on the floor. It doesn't feel well, and it's got the first half of yesterday's blog on it, so I'll just skip it and move on.

I got an email yesterday from owners of one of Sync's littermates - an amateur dog owner. A person with a lot of questions about how to care for puppies. She said "Sit, down, come, crate, and ringing a bell to go out are great. Loose leash is so-so." That sounds like a challenge me, Miss Emme Lou B.! Maybe I'm just a lazy mommy...

Today was a very mature day. Several ideas came together.

Sit - I'm pretty sure Sync responded to a Park cue several times when she wasn't really thinking of doing it. Difficult to tell since she's really into sitting, but that's what it looked like. Passed Step 1, including Comeafters. Also passed Step 2 and 3 complete with Comeafters. She REALLY likes sit.

Down - I'm adding the cue. She's certain of what I want and she's throwing herself down with enthusiasm. Could pass Step 1, but I'd like to see some understanding of the cue and I only started using it yesterday. Once we have that, she's ready to test Step 2, 4 and 3 (except for the Comeafters) right away.

Touch - is excellent except for once or twice when she suddenly remembered Zen. She's passed Step 1, 2, and 3 with Comeafters. Haven't asked her to target twice for once click yet. I think that'll make her bark at me - she's pretty vocal in a Portuguese Water Dog grumbling, scolding, and discussing sort of way.

Zen - she's passed Step 1, including Comeafters, and can easily do both Step 2 and Step 3, but not cold yet because she's not responding to the cue yet so I have to explain it once before she remembers to Zen instead of touch.

Come - I'm dropping kibble on a tile floor, so passing Step 1 wasn't a problem. She's not quite old enough to follow them as they fall yet, but she can really hone in on them by hearing. Finding them on carpet is a little tougher since she can't hear them fall, but she knows they must be there somewhere and she looks diligently down at the "magic" treat-growing carpet. Very funny. Haven't been able to snag Ron yet long enough to start calling her back and forth - although we did that on the stairs two days ago when I was trying to get a photo of a puppy doing Steps To Success for the cover of Volume 1.

Yesterday I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to shape something, so I started working on L2 Go To Mat. She was intent on staring at me, offering sits and downs, so I started really easy. she turned her head about half an inch away from me and I clicked and tossed the treat toward the mat (which was just to the right of my right foot, so close but not directly in front of me). Then I clicked again while she was still facing the mat and tossed another one at it. The next landed on it. I got about 15 clicks in before she started thinking about where she was rather than her position. The first test she did was to very slowly reach out one front paw and lay it very gently on the mat. Click! Three more tries and she put her weight on it. Two of those and she put both front paws on. That's enough for one day!

She did so well yesterday, and she follows the treats so well on the floor, that I started today with the mat 4' away. Again I shaped the first tiny responses, then lured by tossing the treats toward the mat. OH! she growled. THE MAT! GOT IT! and within 5 more clicks she had all 4 feet on the mat. I waited a bit from time to time to see if she'd sit or down, but she didn't think of it before she thought of getting off the mat again, so I stopped. Several times I tossed a treat far enough off the mat that she had to step her front paws only off the mat to get it - then she backed up until all 4 paws were on again.

After this exercise, though, I had virtually lost her brilliant natural eye contact because when she was facing me, she was busy offering me head-turns toward the mat. Combine that with staring at the floor during Zen, waiting for a treat to grow out of the tiles, she was no longer staring at me, so I moved on to another Level 2 behaviour - Focus. I worked 15 treats and it took 12 to get her to offer to watch me again. The first dozen needed lots of noise. In the meantime, she was very busy offering me head turns, tile-staring, sits, and downs.

So the two really exciting things that happened today.

First, I was washing and cutting up pea pods and celery for supper. Can't do that without giving some to Stitch, of course. Stitch is sitting politely, sure she's going to get something. When I give her a pea pod, Sync gets very excited. She jumps up on Stitch, seeming intent on grabbing the pod right out of her mouth, clawing at her face and yapping. Guess what? Sync gets ignored and when Stitch sits again, she gets another one. Again Sync gets hysterical, jumping and barking and clawing, but suddenly she startles, turns toward me, and sits. With huge staring. HEY! I REMEMBERED! DON'T I GET ONE TOO? Of course, she and Stitch got quite a few more.

Then I tossed Stitch a piece of celery. Sync sat and I gave her a little piece. She took it politely, dropped it on the floor, and then sat and stared at me again. WHAT IS THIS INEDIBLE PIECE OF LLAMA FODDER? I THOUGHT WE WERE DOING PEA PODS! Then she heard Stitch chomping vigorously on her own piece, turned to look at her, thought better of her decision, and promptly ate the entire bit of celery. SO funny.

Second (having heard about Emme Lou starting to ring her bells), the going-outside thing. To be fair, it's been -20 degrees with high winds. It's bloody COLD, and Sync has bare footpads and a bare behind. Also there's a snowdrift out the back door in the dog yard that I can't get over. I put Sync out there once and she climbed over it and got "lost" on the other side of an open gate, so we've been going together out the front door, which involves me putting on boots and a jacket and her leash and carrying her 15' down the sidewalk to the driveway before I put her down. Today it was only -5. I could go out without a jacket and she could actually enjoy being out there for a few minutes. About the fifth time she had to go out, I caught her starting to circle and sniff. I called her to me and asked her if she wanted to go out. I have no idea if she understood at that moment, but she looked interested. I got up and went to the door with her following me. She went right to the door and sat while I slipped on my boots and attached her leash. When I opened the door, she trotted right out, did her business, walked on a loose leash back to the door, sat and waited for me to open the door, went in the house, sat again while I undid the leash, and then went ripping three times around the kitchen growling ferociously. MAN this dog is cute.

9 months 27 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-18T19:06:59-07:00

We got up to 2 sessions today. We started the morning workout with eye contact. Yep, it was gone. She immediately began looking around the room for misplaced treats. She's got excellent stick-to-itive-ness, I'll give her that. The first time it took her 27 seconds to give up on the floor and think of looking at me. Then another 8 reps before she started thinking of me first. At 10 reps, she started looking at me to make sure I was watching, then offering behaviours. She offered several very nice distance drops when I pretended to toss a treat over THERE, a couple of pretty two-on-two-off on the one step down into the parlour where I was sitting, but finally she started to figure out that it was my eyes that were paying off. Then I was able to start getting some duration and wiggling my fingers in her peripheral vision while she stared at me. Got up to 15 seconds of Watch.

Next we worked on the paw thing again, but this time I was getting her to paw-target my hand - better control than with my foot, easier to pull away when she presented her muzzle or the wrong paw, she was much more gentle pawing my hand than my leg, and it was easier to put the target in the right position to lure the correct paw up.

Finally I cued her to Lie Down (roll over on her side and put her head down - Relax). She's got the roll well now, but still doing her I'm-doing-it!-I'm-doing-it! tail wag, so this time I was waiting for her tail to stop wagging. It only took 7 or 8 seconds, and she signalled the silence of the tail with a huge sigh, followed by shallower breathing. Got it! Maybe 5 reps, and she was down to 4 seconds of wagging before relaxing.

We repeated the same for her supper session, and she'd made big strides in between. She had eye contact immediately, and without working at it she gave me duration up to 15 seconds. We got to 20 seconds witht no difficulty.

We did Relax next, and again she was better. After 3 repetitions, she was wagging for 2 seconds and then sighing, and she was able to stay relaxed for 15 seconds without working on duration.

We worked the paw again. I'm reaching for her with my right hand and clicking her for touching it with her left paw, then asking with my left hand and clicking for a right paw touch. She wants to reach out with her muzzle, of course, but towards the end of the session she was reliably reaching with with the correct paw, and I started added the voice cues Left for her left paw and Right for her right paw.

Then I realized that my Level 2 Trick was morphing into Level 4 Target. Dang, that's cheating. Oh well, I thought, I'll think about it tomorrow.

I wanted to finish off with a little work on retrieving. I looked around to find something retrievable, and the first thing I saw was… the metal dog bucket that her kibble was in. I asked her to fetch the bucket yesterday and she tried but she'd never lifted it before and it was noisy on the floor when she tried. She bravely put her mouth over the handle but she couldn't get it any further up than that. Couldn't even pull it across the floor. That'll make a good session - and we're on carpet this evening, so it won't make any noise. Oh, but it's still got half her supper in it. That'll make a mess if I pour it out on the table… but hey, that's what Zen is for, right?

So, with the kibble in the bucket, I held the handle out and asked her to Get It. She started to put her nose in the bucket. I said No, Get It. She put the handle in her mouth. Good puppy! And worked quickly up to actually holding the bucket by the handle. GOOD puppy! I actually think the kibble helped. She was so busy thinking about not sticking her face in the bucket that she didn't have time to worry about how scary the bucket might have been. Good session, lots of fun.

9 months 25 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-16T20:07:05-07:00

We started our new advanced agility class this evening. At the seminar last weekend, they had some really yummy "doggy crack" - Kibbles and Bits, cut up cheese strings, wieners, dry cat food, Cheeri-os, and garlic powder all mixed together. Well, I overdid the garlic powder. Not only could everybody in the room smell us coming in, but Syn went right nutso over it. She had a VERY hard time concentrating on the course if her bait bag was anywhere in sight. Something else to work on - bigger distractions. Also it was clear she lost a lot of ground over the weekend while I was concentrating on teaching people and not paying much attention to her. She was more interested in the floor than in me half the time. She was more interested in other dogs than me part of the time. She forgot how to make eye contact, and she forgot how to focus on equipment. Yikes! We have some work to do!

9 months 26 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-17T20:05:31-07:00

I haven't got my suitcase unpacked from the weekend yet, and my bills aren't paid, but I'm almost caught up on sleep so this morning Syn and I started work on all the stuff we lost last weekend. I started with some heavy-duty floor Zen. I began by just testing where she was. Little monkey. I put a treat on the floor, cued No, sat back and started counting. She looked good for 3 seconds, then she nonchalantly lay down and… oopsie, her face was MUCH closer to the treat so she thought she'd just reach over and snag it. Dang, my foot was in the way.

So we started from scratch. It took 5 tries to get to 5 seconds, then we went up 3 or 4 seconds at a time directly to 20 seconds. OH! You were SERIOUS about that?!

While we were doing floor Zen, I noticed that she never once made eye contact with me, so I stopped with my treat hand on the table and just waited. Wow. It took her 11 seconds to think of looking at my eyes, and then it was only a tiny glance. We worked on that for 10 minutes, at the end of which she was (mostly) coming back to my eyes immediately after getting a treat, and holding on for up to 10 seconds. Ouch, that was an expensive weekend.

Finally I stuck out my foot to see if she remembered anything we'd done while starting her trick of matching my steps with hers. We'd gotten an inkling of touching my foot with hers, and she remembered that right away. *I* forgot something - I was supposed to remember to wear jeans when I was working on this. Or at least not my pjs. Double ouch. Anyway, a good job.

Tomorrow we'll work on eye contact some more, and then on coming back to me when she can't find a treat instead of forgetting everything and getting into the lost-treat hunt.

And I cut her body coat down to an inch long. I spent all my spare time last weekend brushing her, but between wrestling with Stitch and the wet snow, it was matting faster than I could brush it. She looks good. She's skinny but her coat makes her look like a plush toy.

9 months 23 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-14T16:17:31-07:00

Whoof, LOOOONG weekend! Syn was (mostly grand), eager to work, great at demonstrating things.

PRO: She had a grand time. She wasn't afraid of any of the dogs. She was excited and interested and not at all concerned about the hubbub and commotion of the seminar. She did some grand distance downs, picked up anything I asked her to, walked nicely in and out of the hotel, was quiet and well-behaved in the car, ate what she should have, stayed hydrated, eliminated where I asked her to, wrestled relatively quietly with Stitch, and slept in the motel room without fuss.

CON: Really started to lose her reliable Go To Mat as the weekend wore on, we'll have to spend some time reworking that over the next couple of weeks, it's not something I want to lose. Also, pro or con, I reached the end of my patience with her cottony puppy coat. I think I spent every second of my down time this weekend brushing her. Between wrestling with Stitch and the wet snow, she is matting within seconds, so as soon as I got home I put her on the grooming table and whacked her whole jacket down to 2". Tomorrow I'll bath her, blow her out, and do a decent job on it.

9 months 19 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-10T15:01:56-07:00

I'm still basking in what a brilliant day we had at the Rally trial. Stitch, Syn and I are now getting ready to go off for the weekend to do a seminar - it'll be Syn's first (at least her first as dog that can actually demonstrate knowledge of something).

A friend is taking the carts for me in her truck, so we had Syn's last practise session this afternoon. Good timing, Little Miss! She walked off with the cart as if she'd been doing it all her life. She decided that the cart wasn't there to hold her back, so she trotted off down the road exploring the horsey hoof prints, bird poop, and long grass in the ditches. When I called her she knew how to turn the cart around and came racing back full speed, forcing me to dodge as she went by, curling around again to meet me at a more reasonable speed. She spent a good deal of our walk motoring along in front of me (wait, isn't that Draft Excellent stuff? Yes, it is!), going faster as I encouraged her, slower when I cued Whoa, and enjoying the whole outing with her tail up, flag waving. As before, the llamas all came to the fence to see what this strange 4-legged-2-wheeled circus parade was, and walked along with us on their side of the fence line.

9 months 17 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-08T09:08:07-07:00

As it turns out, we WERE in the middle of a blizzard the next day, so didn't get any carting done.

I hope I can convey the real extent of what happened in the Rally trial that second day, though.

Syn was entered 3 times. First in Novice. Second in Novice Team. Third for practise in Advanced.

Novice: Since she was somewhat distracted the day before, I put a lot of effort into trying to get her UP, get her excited, get her interested in what I was doing. It wasn't good. Actually from a competition point of view, it wasn't BAD - 191/200, but I was very unhappy with it. She only made eye contact with me three or four times, she was about an inch behind where she should have been - which isn't a big deal for competition, but meant she wasn't In The Game, wasn't enjoying it like I want her to.

Stitch's worst "sin" in competitions is that she's "dutiful". She doesn't enthuse, she walks deliberately. She isn't miserable, but she's not flamboyant. As a Service Dog, this is fantastic. As a competition dog, it's fine but it's NOT what I want. I don't want quiet competence, I want joyful enthusiasm. I want her to lose points because she FLUNG herself into the job. Now it seems I'm somehow teaching Syn to work the same way Stitch does. My heart is broken. If I wasn't in a large group of people I'd be sobbing.

Fortunately I have my best friend/coach/person-who-keeps-me-honest at the trial with me.

Once upon a time (last year, I think) I failed a water trial with Stitch before I ever took a step Stitch was marvellous in the trial, totally perfect. *I* failed by sending her to do the first exercise before the judge told me to. Bear in mind we'd been trying to get this title for 2 years. When I walked out of the ring, this friend made a gesture on her forehead and said "Do you know what this means in Ameslan?" No, I didn't.

"Peabrain," she said. This is the person I need. No sugar-coating. She's up to this task as well.

"You're not handling Syn," she says. "You're handling Stitch. You have to cheerlead for Stitch. Why are you cheerleading Syn? She WANTS to be excited. You don't talk like a chipmunk on steroids when you're training her. Why are you talking like that when you're handling her? Go in there and handle the dog you've got in the ring. It's like you always say 'train the dog who shows up'. Well, handle the dog you've got in the ring, not the one you were showing last year."

So I calmed down, stopped cheerleading, and made sure I gave Syn my eyes when we went in for Novice Team. MUCH MUCH MUCH better. When I came out, my friend said "That time SHE wanted to go faster. SHE wanted to get on to the next thing. SHE was cheerleading you!"

Then I felt like crying again - but because I was so relieved to have beaten the "curse".

So now, instead of going home, I can think about the Advanced class we're in next. She can't actually compete in Advanced, since she'll only finish the weekend with 2 Novice legs and she'd need 3 to move up, so we're entered For Exhibition Only in Advanced just so we can try it and I can give her a little more food in the ring. Now I can afford to look at the behaviours she'll have to do in the Advanced ring. There might be a Stand For Examination. She isn't ready for that, so if there is one, we'll do a Sit for Exam instead. No disruption to the flow of the class, the judge will cooperate, and since we're FEO, we have no chance of passing anyway. There might be a Figure 8 with food bowls on the ground. That shouldn't be a problem, her floor Zen is EXcellent.

Oops, there's a moving drop - we're walking along and I ask her to down. I keep walking, she lies down, and I continue walking around her and back into heel position. I try it once, with a cue and a gesture. Nope. She heard the cue but follows my hand. I try it again with just a cue. Nope. The walking-forward part is too important for her to be able to listen to the cue. So I sat down and while thinking about it, I leaned over to get a nose-kiss from her, and instead of kissing me, she lay down. Aha. Light bulb. If I bend over, she lies down! Cool! Let's try it.

Sure enough, I walk along, I bend my knees and bend over and ask her to Down, and she hits the floor like a bag of hammers. I walk around her and we continue on. WOO HOO! We try it one more time and it works just as well the second time.

Oops again, there's a bar jump. Now the jumps in CARO Rally are at a distance - handler and dog are walking along. Before the handler gets closer than 10 feet back from the jump and 6 feet to the side, she sends the dog, who goes out and jumps on her own while the handler continues to walk past the jump, never getting closer than 6 feet to the jump. They meet on the other side.

On the Movie Album page, there are a couple of videos from months-and-months ago of Syn learning to go around my suitcase, and around my suitcase over a tiny jump (Level 2 Jump). That's all she knows/knew about the subject. I put my chair out in the middle of the spectator section and lead her around it once. Then I cue her to go around it and she does. We work that another 4 times while I get further and further away from the chair, ending up maybe 5 feet from it (that's all the room there is). Then I put the chair HERE and I go THERE and we try it again from the different angle. She's got it. I'll surely have to ask her twice, and go closer, when we're in the ring with a PVC upright and a 12-inch bar jump. No big deal.

We go in the ring. I give her my eyes. She wants to go faster but she stays with me. She's wonderful. She does the moving drop SO WELL I can't believe it. The judge had checked to be sure we were FEO and I explained that she didn't have her Novice title yet and she didn't know these harder behaviours yet. Syn did the moving down so well that the judge wryly gestured her finger down her throat (it was a joke). Wow, I am PUMPED now!

We move on and eventually get to the jump. Showing Stitch on this exercise, the distances look non-existent. Why would anyone go closer than 10 and 6 feet to send a dog over a jump? Approaching the jump with Syn, the chalk mark on the floor showing me how close I can go appears to be at least half a mile from the jump. I can barely SEE the jump! I sidestep a bit to line her up, and cue Go Around! and Little Miss cheerfully trots out and jumps the jump! UnbeLIEVable! I yell WOO HOO and grab her when we meet up, giving her a big ol' schnoogie. What a grand puppy! We'll lose a TON of marks for me grabbing her, but even if we were looking for a qualifying score, it would have been worth it. Little Miss! Look what you did! OMG!

A few more exercises - the moving sidestep is one of her favourites - and we come to another…

Oops. A military turn. How did I miss that? This is an about turn. The dog is on the left. The handler turns 180 degrees to her left while the dog comes around to her right and they meet again going the opposite direction. Essentially the handler does a 180 to the left while the dog does a 180 to the right. Thinking on the fly, I stick out my right hand, ask her to target it, and use it to lead her around behind me as I turn, then stick out my left hand for a target to catch her as she comes around. Slick, smart, easy. It looks like she knows it. Barn cool, that's what it is.

And… we get a 196. -2 for a crooked sit in there somewhere, and -2 for another double command. And… if she'd actually been eligible for the class and we'd been competing, she would have won the class.

So here are the many wonderful things that happened on this wonderful day:

1. I have a wonderful friend who helped me sort out what I was doing wrong.

2. I was smart enough to listen to my friend and stop talking like a high chipmunk.

3. We had the right answer.

4. Syn was trusting enough to believe me when I told her I wasn't going to act like a rodent any more.

5. When I gave her what she knew from training, Syn's performance was fanTAStic.

6. One of the key reasons for the Training Levels is to produce a dog who enjoys learning and who can learn fast - a dog who is perfectly happy with "3-minute behaviours". Syn gave me that in spades today. She learned and applied two very different behaviours based on behaviours she already knew and was able to apply in different circumstances. She learned them very, very quickly and with no stress whatsoever. Not that I'm at all deluded into thinking she "knows" them, but by golly she was able to give me the behaviours.

7. The military turn was even better. She didn't know it, we didn't practise it, she just responded to what I gave her by doing what she knew how to do, and the resort was something different entirely. WOO HOO.

9 months 14 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-11-05T15:10:26-06:00

Syn's not afraid of the dryer any more, and comfortable with her dish again, but she's decided she needs to sit/crouch when I'm putting her cart harness on. What a strange little person she is right now. (eye roll) Teenagers!

This morning she was entered in a CARO Rally trial - same as CKC that she was in 3 months ago, but harder to pass and I can use food in the ring to reward her after stationary behaviours. She went in the ring twice - once for her first Novice leg, and once with a friend for Novice Team. She got the Novice leg with no trouble - she may need a handler transplant, though. -2 points for a double command she didn't need. Other than that, she was a bit distracted during the first half of the round. Not wandering all over, but a little hick-in-the-big-city happening, which was strange since that's the building she's had several classes in. She pulled herself together nicely, though. 189/200, and she was perfect in Team and we got that leg as well. Another of each tomorrow, and I've got her For Exhibition Only (not competing) in Advanced as well tomorrow.

I've been working the cart twice a day this week. We did the hitch-with-Stitch (sorry about that) thing, which was OK when they were going in a straight line, but not great when they tried to turn. There may be a minor advantage to having two shafts - the dog wouldn't be so readily able to turn around and watch the monster cart chasing her down. I decided she needed some practise getting used to the cart, and to the fact that it moves and doesn't kill puppies when it does, so I brought it in the kitchen and we started playing with it. First I clicked her for looking at it, walking toward it, touching it with her nose and her paw, going around it, thinking about retrieving it, and crawling under it. Then we tried "200 pick-up", a variation on the card "game" of 52 pick-up. Basically the game is played like this: I toss a handful of kibble on the floor, and any available dogs see who can pick up the most kibble before it's all gone. When you play it around a cart, it looks like this:

That involved some pushing of the cart on her part, and some gentle moving it back and forth on mine. Then I added Stitch to the mix, which resulted in a lot more movement of the cart while they were eating, and more energy as they competed with each other:

OK. Now she's past "ooh, scary moving thing near the kibble!" and into "why is this stupid thing making my life so difficult?". It's time to try hitching.

Right. Still more interest in the kibble than in the annoying thing attached to her back. Let's take it outside.

Hmmm. That's a little… creepy. I add some wieners, some more kibble, and a few minutes of hearty schnoogies. She remains fundamentally unconvinced but within a minute or two is starting to pull out of her funk.

We did get the tail up high at the end, but this is the best I caught on camera:

She can sleep on that experience and we'll give it another try tomorrow (if we're not in the middle of a blizzard by then). Maybe tomorrow Syn can pull the cart and Stitch can gallop around her free and give her something to chase and keep up to.

9 months 8 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-30T10:43:31-06:00

Two items of interest this week.

First, the cart/harness thing. Syn has worn her harness for hours at a time several days. She's completely at ease with it, with me putting it on and taking it off her, and with me pulling on various parts of it while she's wearing it. No big deal. Day before yesterday we went outside. I tied a 10-foot line on a small suitcase and took her for a walk while I pulled the suitcase. It made quite a racket dragging along behind us in the gravel. Syn spent several minutes walking sideways and trying to duck in front of me (not allowed, dogs who walk in front of me get run over - that's in the Levels and she's practised it ad nauseum). Be a little nervous if you want, walk sideways if you want, keep a keen eye on the monster behind us - all fine. Tripping me - NOT fine. Guess what, when I get tripped, I TRIP.

After a couple of minutes of me just walking, singing a bit, treating any walking NOT in front of me and/or aiming in the direction I was walking, she forgot about the noise and started to enjoy the walk. As we went along comfortably, I gradually shortened the length of the line until the suitcase was dragging directly behind us.

Yesterday we did that again and then we went for a walk with me pulling our dorsal hitch cart instead of dragging the suitcase. Back to the beginning - several minutes of walking sideways and trying to cross in front of me, several minutes of tripping over her and rewarding any appropriate walking. We did manage to go for our walk with her trucking along in front of the cart (which runs in silence, not like the suitcase at all), but she didn't get to the point where she was comfortable with this monstrous thing behind her when we were turning around. Definitely NOT time to hitch her up.

My plan is to get her comfortable in and around the cart with more walking and shaping her to touch it, jump in it, use it as a mat, etc. We'll also do more walking with Syn and Stitch harnessed together as we did last week. Then I'll hitch Stitch to the cart and go for a walk with Syn on lead. Then I'll attach Syn to Stitch with Stitch hitched, then hitch them both, and finally just Syn by herself.

Second item on the agenda: Syn has entered the 8-month-Puppy-Wobbles. Things that have never bothered her before are suddenly vastly frightening. This is coupled with her sudden intense awareness of who's walking near our house and who is US and who is NOT-US. So far everybody at dog class and everybody in my house is US, and I'm not taking any chances right now taking her to the park or anywhere else she might meet someone who is NOT-US. And I'm being VERY careful with the whole cart/harness deal.

What this means to me is that a) she's in a fear period which needs to be managed by not exposing her to things which might scare her and by not getting hysterical about her "freaky" reactions to innocent things; and b) she needs to be in the Leading The Dance regimen for a couple of weeks in order for her to remember that I am in charge of not letting anything bad happen to this house or the members thereof, so she doesn't have to worry her little puppy brain about things like that.

Unfortunately that can't start for a couple of days because I have to go out of town, leaving dogs at home, but I'll start the Dance as soon as I get home.

Cases in point: she's been picking up her dog dish and bringing it to me before meals for a month, but suddenly the dishes are kind of scary. She's very excited about mealtimes, and when I ask her to get her dish so I can put food in it, she's perfectly willing to get it, but she has to creep up on it as if it were about to bite her. She leaves her back paws WAAYYY back behind her, walks her front paws up closer to the dish, then does a "push-up" - lowering her body down almost to the ground so she can reach forward soooo faaaar to get the dish without getting too close to it. Once she's got it, it's safe and she hands it to me cheerfully.

She's been jumping on the grooming table to be brushed, have her nails done, and be blown dry for months and months. This morning I gave Stitch a bath and put her on the table. Turned on the dryer and BAM, Syn scurried out the dog door. Now, she can certainly use the dog door any time she pleases, but this didn't look like going outside, this looked like escaping with her life.

I immediately got excited about Stitch - running the dryer on her but also sweet-talking her and shovelling treats into her as fast as I could.

Jealousy, thy name is dog. Boy, that was tough. Does she come back in and possibly die by dog dryer? Or stay outside and miss out on the treats? Her sort-of compromise was to come in but stay close to the door so she could escape if she needed to, lying tense and distrustful. I tossed her a treat for every one Stitch got. I even blew the dryer air on her once or twice and she did nothing but raise her nose into the air stream. If I leaned toward her though, or reached toward her, she was gone out the door again.

Gradually she got to the point where she could come behind me and allow me to pet her, even to take a handful of hair near her neck and hold onto her for a moment. When Stitch was done and I turned off the dryer, Syn was all joy and relief, woo-wooing loudly and dancing around. She jumped on the table when I tapped it and I gave her a treat and put her back on the floor. I tapped again, she jumped up again, I turned the dryer on and blew some dust out of her jacket, gave her a treat and a cuddle and put her back on the floor. No problem.

Who knows who evil lurks in the heart of Puppy? The Shadow may know but I certainly don't. Ah well, this too shall pass - if I don't get hysterical about it.

9 months 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-24T19:01:54-06:00

Day before yesterday I went to watch a friend of mine at an obedience trial. She has a new dog and the dog was entered in Pre-Novice. I was minding my own business, enjoying her success, when I overheard someone say those magic words "post entries" - which means that you can enter the trial an hour before it starts rather than 2 weeks before. "Oh ho," says I. "Syn could do this!" So I entered once for yesterday.

We warmed up that evening by doing a few sit stays and me walking around her. The morning of the trial, I asked another spectator to touch Syn on the head while she did a sit stay. I used one or two treats, but mostly playing and leash tugging to reward her for practising.

The exercises in Pro-Novice are… Heeling on leash. No, she can't heel, but she has a pretty good Loose Leash Walk, and she gave it to me in spades, watching me closely through half of it and then doing a bit of gawking. In P-N you're allowed to give a couple of extra commands for unimportant behaviours which I used to get her to sit each time we stopped. By the time we stopped each time, she was looking over THERE and so walked on past me a bit, then realized I wasn't beside her so curled in front of me and stopped, staring at me. "Park." plop.

Next are circles around two people standing 8 feet apart. First we made a complete circle counterclockwise, then an about turn and halt ("Park." plop), then a complete clockwise circle with another halt ("P." p)

Then the sit for examination. I asked her to sit, walked out to the end of my 6-foot leash, the judge touched her on the head (which should have resulted in a big leap and wild enthusiasm but amazingly, she gave a little shrug as if to say "Leave me alone, lady, I'm doing a sit stay here!"), I returned around behind her, and EE HAH.

Then about a 15-foot recall, during which she demonstrated her super SYNSYN! come, circled me twice, and plopped into a sit on her own.

Finally, a 30-second group sit-stay and she has a Pre-CD leg. I'm not sure we'll ever finish the title - you don't need the Pre-CD to go for the CD. Still, it's nice to see the enthusiasm and enjoyment she gave me.

In a couple of weeks Stitch, Syn, our friend Fish and I will be doing a seminar in Manitoba. Part of that seminar will be an introduction to carting. Fish has been carting all summer, but Stitch hasn't done any this year and Syn's never done any at all. Today I dug out a couple of harnesses and got started.

Stitch hates surprises. I absolutely can't slap a harness on her after a year-long hiatus and expect her to do anything until she's had some time to remember what it's about. Sure enough, I put her harness on her and she spent 10 long minutes standing in one place.

I didn't expect Syn to have any problem with wearing the harness, and she didn't, other than the initial "what the heck is going on here?" moment. She willingly poked her head through the collar and, after I explained that I wasn't looking for her to floss my teeth, she stood nicely while I adjusted the straps. Then I got a couple of handfuls of their breakfast and tossed them on the floor - 400-pick-up is one of their favourite games and they each immediately forgot about the harnesses and dived into cleaning the floor.

I let them wander around the house wearing the harnesses for an hour or so, then we went for a short walk. Stitch went immediately into "draft dog walk" - slow and steady - while Syn galloped all over the yard, completely ignoring the harness.

On the way home, I fastened the two dogs together. They were each wearing a limited-slip collar (designed for sled dogs), which I tied together with a 6-inch line, and I snapped a singletree onto the withers of their harnesses so they were held about the same distance apart. The harness brakes involve waist belts, which I also fastened together. I was ready for Syn to have a problem with this setup - I had a leash on her, and good treats in hand in case she got worried - but she had no trouble at all. Stitch on the other hand - it was like harnessing a wild Thoroughbred to a small Percheron. Stitch plodded sedately and Syn galloped and pulled. Well, she learned that she CAN pull while she's wearing the harness, and eventually Stitch got into a nice sedate trot and Syn fell into step with her and they looked pretty good for a hundred feet or so. We'll do that again tomorrow and the next day and then we'll start pulling a small car tire on a 50-foot line.

If I can't floss your teeth, I don't know WHAT the heck you want!

Oh, a retrieve. OK, that might be fun.

Yeah! I can retrieve with a harness on! I'm a STAR!

8 months 25 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-17T23:11:29-06:00

We spent almost the whole session yesterday working on that trick. Having had good luck shaping her front feet onto the stool, I switched to shaping her to touch my feet with her front feet. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed how roughly she was "touching" the stool. Yikes. I tried to hold still, but she hit my knee first and clawed down from there. If I held the click in the beginning, waiting for a (my) toe touch, or waiting for a lighter touch, she'd decide she was wrong and go looking for something else to do, so I gritted my teeth and clicked the raking.

Then last night I bought some new music and immediately found a song that would make a GREAT freestyle routine, especially for this dog - Queen's We Will Rock You. I got so excited I played it about 50 times and while I was working out some moves, I suddenly found myself dancing. Wow! My new meds are working! Don't know if I'll ever get to having an actual routine again, but it was sure fun letting my feet think about it.

We started today with the paw touch again, and overnight she'd figured out how to touch much more gently, and to keep working it while I held off for even lighter touches. By holding my foot high off the floor I was able to start clicking for the paw lift BEFORE she actually hit my foot.

We moved on to L2 Communication. Step 1 is the dog backing up. We got that, but not on cue yet. Step 2 is moving out of my space - no problem. Step 3 - same but always to the left. Got it. Step 4 - untangles leash from around (husband) - check. Step 5, untangles leash from front leg. We have the leg lift in response to the leash cue, but we don't have the assured untangle yet.

And then we moved on to… holy cow, L2 Homework. We're at the end of the Level! We're not, of course, DONE the Level. We still have lots of duration and cueing to work on, but it's very encouraging to have gone through everything and seen that we're not going to have any serious trouble with anything. What a good puppy! What a FUN puppy!

8 months 22 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-14T12:41:21-06:00

I sat down yesterday to jump through the rest of the behaviours in Level 2. HA HA HA HA HA

Syn was eager eager to work, so I decided to leave L2 Relax until the end of the session. When we finally got around to it, it was brilliant. When she's relaxing, I'm asking her to go over flat out on one side. When we started training again after our "vacation", she had absorbed the flat-out idea and was offering it to me - something she hadn't thought of when we stopped working on it. Also we hadn't gotten any real duration on it. Nevertheless, I asked her to go on her side once and immediately she was offering it to me. I noticed that she was wagging her tail heartily for a few seconds, then it would slow and stop, so instead of looking specifically for duration on the side, I started clicking the lack of tail wag and then working on duration of no-wag. This is hard for me because I think it's very cute when she does something studious like Zen and then wags furiously to let me know she's doing what I want. But, by looking at no-wag duration, we got up to 1 minute of Relax in 3 tries. Wow. I'm not saying she knows it, going to 1 minute in 3 tries was really pushing the envelope and I'm not going to pretend she has the behaviour, but she's sure got a good start on it. That's L2 Relax Step 3. Next time we'll go back to Step 2 and build up from there.

So we started with L2 Handling. Yeah, yeah, touch my ears, hold my muzzle, open my mouth, play with my teeth, count my toenails WHERE'S MY TREAT? We worked on focussing on letting me handle her as a way to get treats rather than regarding me as a hindrance in the snatching of them. Check.

On to L2 Tricks. That's where we got stuck. She's getting 230 bits of kibble in a meal now, and almost all of them went to Tricks. I thought I'd focus her attention on her front paws a bit more and maybe that would help with her tap dancing sit stays. I started with getting her to paw her nose. I put a bit of tape on her nose and clicked when she raised a paw to try to scoop it off. My goodness, she's an athletic little cuss. Stitch could never get her paw up further than her muzzle, so I had to teach her "there's a fly on your nose" instead of "hide your eyes", but Syn easily gets her paw up over her ear. I got the behaviour immediately, but soon got bored with it and decided that if she's that athletic, I'll teach her to raise one paw (who wants a treat? does anybody have to leave the room? who's going to get that for me?). Instantly I saw a problem. I do NOT want to click her for simply lifting a paw - I actually spent 5 minutes once clicking her for that - that's how I got the tap dancing 8*{ . Instead, I thought I'd get her to target my hand with her paw, then raise my hand, then fade it. Not so easy. We had a lot of trouble with her wanting to target my hand with her nose. I'd say no, she'd stop, but as soon as I clicked her for shifting her weight away from my tickle fingers, she'd start nose targeting again. Her eyes were starting to dilate, so we went on to something else.

Last week in class while others were working on getting a swing finish with their dogs' front feet on stools, Syn wouldn't put hers on (I missed the first 3 weeks of class, and since she's already got a good swing finish, I didn't bother with it at the time), so I got a stool and started on that. Wowzers, she's really got retrieving on the brain! She kept trying to retrieve the stool, and her pupils weren't going down, so I took the stool away and tried shaping her to put her front feet on the lowest stair in the room.

Interesting. She started putting her feet on the stair, but she was thinking about what position her head was in when I clicked, or where she was looking, rather than what her feet were doing. I was right, doing something with her feet really should help with the tap dancing. I saw it hit her. Suddenly she knew I was clicking for her feet!

Once she had both front feet on the stair, I put the stool in front of the stair and watched in delight as she lifted her body cleanly over the stool to plant front feet on the stair with back feet still on the floor. Clever pup.

So we worked on front-feet-on-the-stair a little more, and then we moved away from the stair, I put the stool down, and started from the beginning shaping her to put her front feet on the stool. She got it almost immediately. With that amount of work, I'm thinking that could be a trick all by itself, but I still want to take her on to raising a paw.

With 20 kibbles left, we worked on Relax, and then we were done.

8 months 20 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-12T15:12:47-06:00

We had a grand time this morning. I'm getting bored with working 3 seconds at a time trying to get Syn to sit without tap dancing, so we moved on and worked on her stays when we were nearly done. That was a lot more fun.

We started cold at the beginning of Level 2, tested out what we could and trained a bit on what we couldn't.

We polished off all 5 behaviours in L2 Zen, including the Comeafters. Not a big deal - Zen R Us. She's very, very good at Zen.

Also went through L2 Focus, which was a bit of a surprise, and I didn't want to dwell on it because she was tap dancing a bit while she was staring in my eyes, but she did get the 10 seconds of eye contact easily.

L2 Come - another one of her basic great behaviours. No problems.

L2 Down - we worked on it a bit. We've got Steps 1, 3, and 5. Step 2 is staying down for 1 minute, and 4 is staying down for 1 minute with me 20 feet away. The 20 feet aren't a problem - in fact she's better with me further away than she is with me up close - but she's not ready for more than 15 seconds without rolling back and forth (the down version of tap dancing), swinging her head around, and generally thinking too hard about it.

To work on this, I started her out on a big cushy mat. She had no problem giving me 1 minute of silent body and mind on the mat. We did that a few times, then tried it on the floor, and that's how we got up to 15 seconds on the floor. We might have been able to go further, but she was doing very well and I didn't want to push her.

L2 Sit - again, the duration is a problem. We got Steps 1, 4, and 5. 2 and 3 are a 30-second stay and a 1-minute stay. I'm pretty sure she could have done them both, but I'm not going to ignore the foot movement. I seem to remember that I spent an afternoon once shaping her to shuffle her feet - bad, bad, bad idea. Won't do that again until she's 42 years old.

L2 Lazy Leash - sweet, no problem.

L2 Target - the same. She likes closing cabinet doors with her nose.

L2 Go to Mat - a foundation behaviour she obviously considers to be one of her… umm… foundation behaviours.

L2 Crate - I didn't expect a problem with this - it's taught as a Go to Mat with bars around the mat - and we didn't have any.

L2 Distance - here we had a momentary problem. I used a very small collapsible laundry basket as my "pole" and Syn wasn't listening when we started. She tried to retrieve it so we practised basket Zen for a minute or two. Then she tried to retrieve the llama harness that was in the basket, so we practised llama-harness Zen for another minute. Finally she realized it was supposed to be a pole, and went around it with no more trouble. When she had that, we went into another room and I asked her to go around a big crate, which she did without hesitation.

L2 Jump - we didn't test this one, as we were doing it last night in agility class.

That's as far as we got, but we covered a LOT of ground. Next time we'll start on L2 Relax.

8 months 19 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-11T22:27:30-06:00

Agility class again this evening. Syn is getting higher and higher each week. I'm constantly astonished that she's able to control herself so well and then explode into leaping, running and jumping.

But. Last week the teeter was on the floor and only able to tip about an inch. That didn't bother her at all. This week it was up about a 8". I was asking her to walk over it as I walked beside her, but she was overcome by the joy of it all and ran ahead before we were ready. As she felt it dropping, she skittered off the side of the contact zone. She appeared not to have been affected by it, but the next time she bailed off several times. I started shaping her paws onto the solid end of the board rather than asking her to go the length of it. That went very well and soon she was sitting on the down end cheerfully taking treats while a helper lifted her end of the teeter up and down. Syn wound up riding almost the entire distance up and down without any problem at all (these people are good) and the next time it was our turn, she went over confidently, letting it tip and riding it down. Again I'm thrilled with her rate of recovery. I don't care how many things startle her if she'll accept my explanation that her minor fright wasn't a reasonable response.

Then there was the usual jumping over, running through, etc. I'm loving Syn's Look and Watch cues. It's lovely to be able to tell her to Look and have her snap to focus on the target on the other side of a jump.

Also my dog-in-law is in the same class but my daughter-in-law's out of town this week so I took Phoenix AND Syn to class and handled them both alternately. This proved much better for Syn, who has been flagging a bit near the end of the 1-hour class. Having to sit out parts of the class while I worked with Phoenix certainly brought Syn back with renewed vigour!

8 months 17 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-09T23:01:57-06:00

We had a very good time today, though it didn't turn out as planned.

We went to a drop-in conformation class. I was surprised that it wasn't cancelled, being it's the day before Thanksgiving, a major holiday. Well, turns out it WAS cancelled, but the roof had leaked so I helped move equipment and mop while Syn played with a 2 year old Lab. This was nice to see - the Lab was very enthusiastic and excited to see her. It came racing over and all but bowled Syn over. I thought this would scare her (but it was too late to do anything about it before it happened), but she took the charge as a play overture so it didn't frighten her. She also rather strongly objected to how rude it was and definitely told the dog to get out of her face. Good pup!

(Later a Golden came in, got the same greeting from the Lab, and responded the same way - by politely but firmly telling the Lab she was being inappropriate. The Golden, unfortunately, got a pinch-collar correction for being "bad". Sigh.)

After moving equipment, the Golden and another Lab were practising for an upcoming obedience trial, so Syn and I tried some obedience moves as well. Well! I'm thrilled.

Her attention was fantastic. While the poor Golden was being niggled to death with the pinch collar to try to get it to pay attention, Syn was glued to me. I started asking her to heel, which she has only ever done a few steps at a time except in her Rally Novice trials. She was great. When I used the heel cue "Squirrel!" she bounded once, then leaped high and came down bounding. This is EXACTLY what I want! Then I thought about a Rally trial coming up in 3 weeks and tried heeling again but this time asking her to "Watch". She took off smoothly and fairly precisely, eyes glued to mine. Wow! I had to cue most sits as I stopped, but then I've never taught her an automatic sit.

Then we did some figure 8s. Her inside circles were fanTAStic. She was pulling her butt in as we went around, which made her sidestep the circle (her back feet travelling in a bigger circle than her front feet). Very pretty, I couldn't have asked an experienced dog to do that any better. The outside circle wasn't as good. She didn't realize how fast she'd have to go to keep up with me, and it's quite a change of pace after the inside circle - which is the point of the figure 8, I imagine. I could get her to do it by building up some anticipation as we came out of the inside circle and by cueing "Squirrel!" at the point where I wanted her to speed up. What a fun puppy!

Next, recalls. Bear in mind we were working on 10-second sit stays yesterday, so I thought I'd try to get across the room so I could call her, but I wasn't expecting much (OK, granted, I wanted to show off what an 8-month puppy who had never worn a pinch collar could do). I asked her to sit, asked her to stay, and walked away. She started to follow me when I was about 15 feet away from her - which, again granted, gave me a good opportunity to say "no, silly puppy, that's not what I wanted" in contrast to the other trainer who was yanking and scolding. I took her back, rewarded her for sitting, asked her to stay again, and this time I got all the way across the room and counted to 10 before I called her. She came with her usual Superman recall and sat in front of me (considerably crooked), then came around behind me into heel position again when I asked her to.

By then I was getting a little depressed about the other dog so we practised a few sit and down stays and then went home. We got up to 1 minute each with no problem at all. Of course, that won't translate into any improvement in performance in my parlour, but it was lovely to see, and lovely to look across the room at Little Miss staring at me with eagerness and trust.

And nice to know that I'll be doing a seminar for this club in 3 months. Maybe Syn and I can get one person to tuck her pinch collar quietly in a drawer and not use it any more.

8 months 16 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-08T18:08:35-06:00

Now that Thomas has completed the filming part of his documentary and is heading home to begin the REAL work, the "post" part - editing, fixing, arranging, etc, I thought I would show you a couple of neat photos he took of my squirrel.

This is Syn relaxing in her chair after an exhausting session of earning her Junior Water Dog title.

And this is a still cut out of the film which pretty much captures her entire attitude to life: I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonna EEEEEHAAAAHHH!!!! I GOT IT! Photos, I proudly add, by Thomas Brezinski.

Over the last couple of days, Syn and I have been working on her understanding of the idea that sit and down are two different things, each with its own specific cue. She's better now than she was when we stopped working Levels a couple of months ago.

This evening we worked on her stays again. Trying to short-circuit her tap-dancing, I started by putting a big cushy dog bed on the floor about 8 feet away from me and telling her to go to mat. She did and I started clicking her for lying down on it, then gradually working on clicking her for staying down without flipping around, getting up, swinging her head wildly back and forth, or kicking her back legs. It took a while to get past 3 seconds, but once we got it, she went fairly quickly up to 25 seconds with only a few restarts.

Then I tried sit with her on the floor. It didn't work. I took the cushion out of the dog bed and got her to sit inside the ring. That worked MUCH better. It's fun to see her desperately trying to control her urge to dance. We got up to 15 seconds a couple of times, which is a vast improvement on a few days ago.

Then I got an exercise ball and clicked her for pushing it with her nose. I'm not sure I can get her to bring it to me in the small space I have to work with, but once I get the point across that I'm talking about her nose rather than her teeth or her paw, we can try it in the hallway.

We finished the session with a bit of free shaping. She's not as confident as Stitch is in the process, but she's eager to figure it out.

8 months 15 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-07T20:57:07-06:00

Thomas Brezinski, my nephew, is here from Toronto making a documentary about our family. This has included following me and Syn to the lake, to the water trial, to class, and today, out to a park near the university to film her doing various cute behaviours. I hope to have links to some of his footage of the dogs soon. It's amazing what a difference a decent camera, someone who knows how to use it, and a monopod make to video!

Oh, it was a perfect trip! We drove to the park. Syn and I got out (leaving Thomas to carry the camera, bags, and other equipment across the parking lot and field) and started walking to the spot he'd picked. Lazy Leash all the way, with no effort on my part. Syn was excited to be going somewhere new and excited about all the wonderful smells, but she was careful to keep the leash loose the entire time. She had one bad moment when we arrived. There was a large sculpture made up of long lengths of pipe, maybe 20 feet tall (that wasn't her problem). Her problem was a large pale rock near the sculpture, sitting all alone in the field. She was highly suspicious of it. She growled and barked at it, raising her hackles and glaring at it. I laughed at her and took a step back, asking her to look at me, sit, down. She did these things, but kept looking over her shoulder at the menacing rock. As this wasn't a major crisis, just a moderate suspicion, I kept laughing and walked closer to it. She ducked in behind me a bit but kept coming. She had stopped barking, which I took as a nice sign of her nearly trusting my opinion. When we got close enough, she cautiously stepped forward to sniff it, then relaxed. I asked her to jump up on it and she had no trouble giving me that. We don't have rocks in our soil here, so I'm sure this was the first person-sized rock she'd ever seen. Her bounce-back from little scares is amazing.

Then we sauntered casually around the area for a couple of minutes, giving Syn a chance to sniff. Still she kept the leash loose.

When Thomas arrived, I took the leash off and we worked on the Come Game, retrieving, Relax, and some shaping. Through it all, Syn responded just as she would have in the living room. Joggers and bicyclists went by, some with dogs, and the Flying Squirrel kept right on paying attention, right on eagerly playing the game. Gosh, does this training actually work?

Yes. Yes it does.

8 months 13 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-05T17:02:53-06:00

We've been working on nothing much but staying out of the kitchen and stays for a few days. Neither going brilliantly but some progress being made. She can stay FAIRLY well when she's not In The Game but if I'm holding a treat and she's been working, she really, really needs to do something to prove she's thinking.

Yesterday was her beginners agility class again, and more fun. It took a few minutes to get into the building as she was eager to be there and had trouble remembering the Lazy Leash. Once in, she was great. She went over a very low teeter for the first time and it didn't bother her. Ran through weave channels with enormous enthusiasm, and raced through a tunnel to a target. In the second half, she was introduced to the collapsed tunnel (which wasn't collapsed but held open by one of the instructors so she could get used to it). She ran itthree times before we moved on to something else. The fourth time I went past it, I was thinking about something else for a fraction of a second and she went through it without anyone holding it. I would have called her back when I saw her going, but calling a dog back when she's going through this thing is almost guaranteed to get her tangled in the cloth and scare the dickens out of her. One-way only! Anyway, she was successful and thought nothing of it.

Finally she tried the A-frame (just a bit lower than this one). She was a bit hesitant the first time, tiptoeing over it and stopping once to look back and ask if she was doing what she was supposed to, but after that she flew. Throughout the class, I was almost always able to send her out ahead of me or leave her while I led out in front of her, or go off to the side and have her commit to the obstacle without me "babysitting" her. Nice.

I made good use of the Level 4 Focus behaviours - asking her to Look where she's going to go before I sent her. She was so good at it I had trouble not jumping up and down and shouting "That's Level FOUR! That's Level FOUR!"

8 months 9 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-10-01T21:48:51-06:00

Six times today Syn and I worked on the dog room. I started sitting in the room playing with Stitch, tossing treats around the room, while Syn sat on the stairs and wished she was with us. Then I'd get up and move to where I could see her, invite her to come into the room, and then go back to sitting at the grooming table. At first she'd come to the door and peek in and I'd toss treats at her until she decided it was safe to come in. Strangely, the hardest part seemed to be about 5 feet away from me. Once she got past there she was eager to come all the way to me, though her pupils were popped throughout.

After the first three sessions, sometimes she came into the room nonchalantly with relaxed eyes, and sometimes she peeked in the door and worried about it. Very odd. Regardless of how she came in, she was eager to jump up on the table. I stayed relaxed and happy, feeding her when she came to me, sometimes letting her jump on the table to play, sometimes playing with her on the floor.

So this evening when we started training for supper, I wanted to do something fun instead of diving right into duration on the down. My dogs have all retrieved their dishes - setting the table for their supper and putting the dishes away when they're done. Syn thought her dish was too heavy and too… metallic. She's got an excellent retrieve, so I started by putting the dish on the floor and shaping her to target it. Then I picked it up and started shaping her to put her mouth on it. That didn't take long - 20 reps. Then I put it on the floor again and shaped her mouth onto it. She got it right away and surprised me by starting to lift it almost immediately.

Within another 20 reps, she was happy to bring it to me and, sitting or standing, hold it until I asked for it. Then she picked it up a bit sloppily and it slipped out of her mouth...

and landed upside down. Now I've been using the same dishes for 20 years, and no dog has EVER been able to pick them up when they land upside down. They try for a few seconds and then look at me, asking me to help them. So I wasn't in a hurry, I thought she'd do the same.

Well, no. The Flying Squirrel is a bit more resourceful than that. She examined the dish for a moment, and then

just picked it up and brought it to me.

Next we worked on the down stay. She was a bit more settled this evening, and we got up to 15 seconds with little trouble

And then the sit. It quickly became obvious that she has completely forgotten what Sit means. Down has been paying off well for 2 days, and if I opened my mouth she'd go down, no matter what I said, so I shut up and went back to the beginning, luring a sit, getting her to volunteer it, and then very quietly starting to put the cue back on.

8 months 8 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-09-30T13:44:42-06:00

I put a piece of string across each entry to the kitchen about 8 inches off the floor and did some string Zen. That seems to have done the trick. The only people who have been caught by this trap today are me and my husband. In a day or two I'll take the string down and do a bit more runner Zen before I think about trusting it.

Having finished our review of Level 1, we started on Level 2. In our recent water trial, the judge said "Junior Water Dog is all about instinct. Apprentice (the next level) is about self-control". Gee, as we were doing this I was thinking "Level 1 is all about getting to know her. Level 2 is about self-control". Aaaaand… we don't have any ;*D

Level 2 Zen went very well. She's all about Zen (no self-control? Wait for it). I can put treats on her paws, on her muzzle, on my feet. I can toss treats in the air and softly say "no" as they're falling and she'll levitate backwards away from them. I can cue "no" when she's leaping on Stitch and she'll stop.

Yes, even this can be stopped with a single quiet "no".

Level 2 Focus took a few tries to build up to 10 seconds. Apparently there are much better things to look at than me, though for the time she gives, she's locked on. We got 10 seconds, but I want to work it more so she can give it to me cold ALL the time.

Level 2 Come - more distance, come to grab her or put on a leash - no problem.

Level 2 Sit and Down - aha, here comes trouble.

She is, as I mentioned, mixing up sit and down. This is probably because I was so delighted with her ability to do rock-solid downs 20 feet away from me that we practised a lot. Also because while I was away she was thinking about Lie Down, which is our cue for rolling over on her side and playing dead (except for her tail), which she was unable to do on her own when I left and now offers at the blink of an eye.

The bigger problem (not really a problem) is that she has 11 seconds of duration on sits AND downs. Pushing to see what she'd do, I got her once up to 60 seconds by reminding her what she was supposed to be doing every 10 seconds. It was VERY funny. She rolled from side to side. She played dead on her left side, then her right. She put her head down, then rolled just her head so her left cheek, then her right cheek, was flat on the floor. She wagged her tail furiously, then sighed and moaned a little. OK, won't do that again. Level 2 Sit and Down, here we come.

Well, Lazy Leash will be OK… not. She has forgotten how to loosen the leash. HURRAY for the Levels, where we get to actually find out where the dog is, instead of assuming!

Oh, one more thing. While I was gone she thought up something about being groomed (?) or the grooming table (?) that she doesn't like. I went into the dog room with a handful of kibble and sat down at the grooming table. Syn immediately dashed out the dog door. I had to play work Stitch for a bit, tossing treats around the room and praising her loudly, before Syn thought it might be safe to come back in the room. What's that about? Oh well. Work the dog who shows up (however slowly she shows up), not the one you thought you had.

She was obviously upset about the whole situation, but really wanted the treats. I tried calling her and she brightened and came to me, but I didn't do anything with her except hand her a bunch of treats and then go back to looking at Stitch. Syn "escaped" into the living room but soon came back and asked for treats again. Soon she was staying in front of me, so I tapped the grooming table and suggested she might like to jump up on it. Sure, no problem. I gave her a bunch of treats, lifted her down, and went to do laundry. A few minutes later I sat down at the grooming table and went through the whole floor show again. This time while she was on the table, I shaved her butt and face, which she accepted with no trouble at all. I lifted her down and she was fine. Asked her to jump up again, no trouble. Played with her on the table and lifted her down again.

I went away, came back, sat at the table, and again she darted out of the room. Hmmm. Lots of meals on the table in the next week or so...

8 months 7 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-09-29T22:58:00-06:00

One thing Syn learned very well while she was alone with my husband - counter surfing, that time-honoured talent of Portuguese Water Dogs everywhere. So hubby and I decided last night that Miss Squirrel should stay out of the kitchen altogether. This won't be an easy task, as the kitchen, living and laundry rooms are all one. There is an island in the kitchen, however, so we decided that she could stay out of the aisle between the island and the kitchen counters, thus anything on the counters should be safe.

That's the theory.

So I bought two rug runners and put them in the aisles. I blotted each one with vanilla and did a bit of work with Zen and a vanilla-blotted rag. Then I drew a line with my finger on each runner and gave the dogs the Zen cue: "You Shall Not Pass".

Right.

Stitch looked at me like I was crazy and clearly decided that since she wasn't interested in vanilla anyway, this had nothing to do with her, so she walked right to me on the runner. I jumped up and down a bit, intoning ACK in my most horrified voice and pushing her off the runner. She went and sat on the stairs and glared at me.

Syn, seeing this exchange, came to the right conclusion ("dogs are not allowed on the runners") and came up with a solution which might have given us both what we wanted (I obviously wanted dogs not to walk on the runner, she wanted to be in the kitchen): she tiptoed daintily in the very narrow space between the runner and the cupboards. She also got an ACK, though it was hard not to laugh.

Maybe I haven't thought this through quite enough. After Syn's ACK, Stitch had to get a toy to calm us all down, while Syn kept asking exactly how far she had to be from the runner to be legal. Later, when I was sitting in the living room, Syn went wandering through the kitchen, looking innocent. When I stopped her she said "But I thought we were staying away from YOU in the kitchen!"

Sigh.

8 months 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-09-28T12:55:10-06:00

There are 150 pieces of kibble in ⅔ of a cup of Syn's breakfast. That got us through all of Level 1 and Level 2 Zen.

The good news is that she was In The Game, eager to work - I might even say thrilled to be working again instead of sitting around the house having to think of what to shred next - and clearly considered almost all the Level 1 behaviours to be baby steps.

The bad news is… well, there isn't any bad news. She was In The Game, eager to work, and well ahead of where we were working, for the most part.

Still, I'm VErY glad I decided to start again at the beginning. The time it took was very short (one meal), and now I'm sure of what she remembers and what she doesn't. What she doesn't remember is minor but could be a problem later if I ignore it. Being a "mover and shaker", she has a tendency to assume what I want and throw it at me with enthusiasm, without waiting to see if that was, indeed, what I wanted. For instance, in one of the Target behaviours, she has to move 3 steps to touch my hand. For another, she has to touch twice for one treat. I noticed that it's about 3 steps to go from my left side, around behind me, and up on my right side. That's one of the behaviours we're working on with Freedom Dogs to create space behind the Marines, so I decided to use it for one of the Comeafters (designed to help her generalize the behaviour and make it more useful). She was all about touching my hand when it was in front of me, but as soon as I asked her to touch it behind me, she whipped into heel position (WHEE! I KNOW THIS!) so I had to slow her down a bit and get her thinking before she could follow the steps. Also she has forgotten the meaning of "Park". Maybe it means sit, maybe it means down. More often it might mean down, so I have to stop using it for a couple of days, get her offering me sits, and then plug the cue back in. That'll take care of supper…

All in all, she's forgotten less than I thought she had. The basics are there, so we'll be moving ahead again soon.

8 months 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-09-27T22:46:56-06:00

I've been SO looking forward to getting home and STAYING home for a bit. Not only do I have a lot of work-related stuff to clean up and a house that needs me, but Syn hasn't been worked in weeks-and-weeks. To make matters worse, for a month or so before I left we were working exclusively on competition behaviours and not on Levels behaviours. Oy, I bet we have work to do!

I got home last night. This morning for breakfast we did a little semi-testing to find out where we are, though I have every intention of running through the behaviours right from the beginning of Level 1 to REALLY find out where we are.

Yep. She's eager-eager-eager to do something - anything, in fact. She's apparently been getting bored with shredding every shredable object that wasn't nailed down (and a few that were) in the dog room and the small outside pen while I've been gone. Paper towels - fair game. Shampoo bottles? OK. Bathmat? Yeah, that's reasonable. But a RUBBER BOOT? What kind of maniac shreds a rubber boot?

So Come, Sit, Down, and Squirrel (our heel cue) look pretty good. Lazy Leash has gone to pot, but I knew that after I started showing her in conformation. It's the duration behaviours that have really suffered. Sit Stay? 1 second. Down Stay? 3 seconds. Eye contact? Using half her breakfast, we got that up to a fairly solid 6 seconds and one 9-second offering. Holding the dumbbell with me is gone - she tries to tug it out of my hand. When I hold my hand steady and won't let her move it, she gives up immediately.

No worries, just some backtracking to be done.

On the other hand, we started a new beginners agility class this evening (though the class has been going on for 3 weeks already). Oh my GOODNESS!

I had to close the door to the building three times before we were able to walk in on a loose leash. Syn clearly recognised the place from her baby puppy class and was eager to get inside.

Once in, she had a momentary flashback to that first set of puppy classes when she was scared of the dogs, but she met a few friendly ones and her tail came back up immediately. She was very happy to see the people.

We started with running through a channel of weave poles. I'll be using 2x2 to teach her weaves when she's old enough (18 months, maybe), but I don't mind if she runs through channels a few times in class in the meantime. Neither does she. The helper and I had a slight miscommunication. I handed her my bait bag, thinking she would put down a target plate and put some treats on it. She thought I wanted her to put the bait bag down, so that's what she did. Syn went through the channel like a little brown rocket, grabbed the bait bag, tossed it a couple of times, and then brought it to me! She got a little jackpot for that.

Since the bait bag worked so well, we used it some more. Each time Syn was very eager to get it and brought it immediately back to me. So she DOES remember retrieve, just not the holding part.

Stays were a bit better in the class than they were this morning at home (we weren't practising stays in class, just me trying to get away from her a bit).

She remembered her go-around work and cheerfully went around jump standards (which looked like going over jumps to the rest of the class) and the tire.

I think I've decided on having her lie down on the ground at the end of the A-frame and dog walk as her contact behaviours, so we practised lying down after a very low A-frame. When we moved to a very low dog walk, she really got going. The helper was putting five or six pieces of kibble on the ground to slow her to a stop at the end, and she was FLYING. At one point, she went about 4 feet up the ramp, jumped the rest, clearing about ⅔ of the up ramp and ⅔ of the down ramp, did the bottom 4 feet of the down contact, and ate the kibble on the floor. This dog is going to be FUN in agility! I used Look to get her focused on where she was going, Watch to get her to focus on me while other dogs were running, and her awareness of what works and what doesn't to teach her that she had to go the whole distance on the board even if she thought going on the floor would be faster.

Where she really excelled, though, was on the pause table. I stood 5 feet back from the table, cued her to Go To Mat, and she ran for it, folding up her legs into a down even as she was landing on the table. Clever girl!

In short, we had a grand evening. Class was fun, Little Miss was a Synsation, and I can see Training Levels in everything she does during class. The next few years are going to be SO FUN.

7 months 15 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-09-06T16:30:09-06:00

Syn, Stitch and I spent the weekend at a water trial - daring stuff for September in Alberta. There was a practise scheduled for Friday, but when we woke up it was 5 degrees above zero with the practise due to start at 9. I used my 10 minutes at the site to play with Syn on land, toss the bumper for her on land, and walk several times around the ring. The first time around, I let her sniff and explore. The second time around, I got her attention and asked her to watch me and pay attention, and rewarded her by tossing the bumper. That went very well. She was cheery and enthusiastic, willing and happy.

By the time it was Stitch's turn, it was considerably warmer and I asked her to go in the water - well, that's a dumb idea and why would she want to do that? We went out on a boat and she willingly leaped off the boat, but it was clear she wasn't there to enjoy water trials.

Saturday morning, pretty chilly but doable. Syn was first on the line. In our 3-minute warmup, we did another round of sniffing the ring, another round of paying attention, several dry land retrieves, then she and I waded into the water and did a couple of very short (4 foot) bumper retrieves - just enough to get her wet and get her swimming.

The first exercise was the 25-foot bumper retrieve. She jumped out after it, stopped momentarily before getting more than her feet wet, looked back at me, but hopped out after the bumper when I told her to go on, got it and brought it back. Good good pup!

The next exercise was a 120-foot boat ride. She hopped up on the boat platform and stayed on it while I sat down. It was pretty wavy and the rower was fast, so the platform was wobbly. Syn wasn't happy enough with the feel of it to lie down for more than half a second at a time when I asked, but sitting up was acceptable. Hop off and walk back to shore with me - excellent.

Third, I left her alone (ALONE, ALL ALONE, NAKED AND COLD, SOLO, SINGLE, A-LOOOONNNNE) on shore being held by a steward while I went 60 feet out in the water on the boat (MOOOOM! DON'T LEAVE ME, MOM!) and called her to come into the water and swim to me, then climb up onto the boat. Umm, no problem with that one.

Finally, she had to swim 120 feet beside me, wading in from shore and walking out with me when we were done. Also no problem. And as we left the water, we heard the judge say the magic words "That's a Junior Water Dog!"

She was also entered in Apprentice, the second level, but was clearly not ready for it. It involves a lot more distance, stays instead of being held, etc. Apprentice is certainly not above her ability, but she definitely needs a bit more than 3 days' practise to get it. That's OK, I'm thrilled she got Junior, I didn't really expect it. When she appeared unable to perform a task (like a long retrieve), I went out and helped her. Even so, and I think partly because of the cold water and the fact that, as a pup, she has no blubber to keep her warm, I aborted the performances early because she started thinking that running around would be more fun and less trouble than doing what I was asking her to do.

Stitch, OTOH, was equally clear that even though she has done the Working level in the past and has the title, she was not prepared to do it again with 3 days' practise, nor was she prepared to do it in cold water. I'm pretty much of the opinion right now - considering her performance a couple of weeks ago in Rally and her performance this weekend in Water - that from now on she can do her REAL job (Service Dog), which she's good at and likes, and a bit of agility now and then, which she enjoys, and I'll concentrate my enthusiasm on Syn.

7 months 7 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-29T20:36:45-06:00

7 months, 7 days. Time for reflection. What an amazing "little" dog. She's suddenly half an inch taller than Stitch, and she's lost none of her élan.

A couple of days ago I was driving the Gator past one of the llama pastures. The llads all came running over to watch the dogs go by. Syn hasn't really noticed them before, but this time she watched them canter over to look at her and walked forward to the fence to get a better view of them. This worried my a bit as the fence here is made up of four strands of plain wire about 18 inches apart and Syn could very easily walk under or through it - and some of the younger llama boys are starting to feel that guarding is their job.

I very casually gave her our Zen cue, asking her to leave them alone, to come away from them: Syn, no. I said it gently and calmly. She peeled away from the fence and came back toward me.

Oops, not quite so easy. "Yeah, but they're cool!" and she turned back toward the fence. Once again I quietly said "Syn, no" and again she turned back toward me. She was good then for about 8 steps, but then the siren call of the llads pulled her back again. I said "Syn, no" a third time, and she came back AND FORGOT ABOUT THEM. Well, y'know, not really, but she decided to ignore them - even when we came by the pasture again on the way home. No fuss, no muss. Yes, I asked her 3 times, but she responded appropriately each time, and once she realized I was serious, she stayed with me. Good pup!

Four days ago I did a lecture and book-signing at the library. Stitch and Syn both came along. Stitch was her usual serene and impressive self. Syn was wonderful. In spite of 45 people, little kids, THREE media cameras and crews, she was totally with me and totally upbeat, willing to work - brilliant. She did the very impressive drop-a-handful-of-treats-on-the-floor, let-her-start-eating-them-and-then-give-the-Zen-cue trick. She backs off SO well and stands staring at the treats wagging her tail waiting for the click so she can go back to scarfing them up.

Two days ago we did a book signing in a local pet store. Stitch and Syn spent the afternoon on a table talking to people, occasionally being invited off to demonstrate Go To Mat or some such. Again, Syn was excellent - friendly, cheerful, well-behaved, fully able to concentrate in spite of chew sticks on shelves nearby.

She's ahead of Stitch at the same age in… her ability to stay with me when we're out and about. Her joy. Her ability to retrieve. Her understanding of basics - I'm very happy with the new Training Levels. Can't wait to get back to training.

Two days until we leave for Syn's first water trial. One of the most fun things I'm teaching her is a cue to find her buoy line - I drop the line while we're walking, keep walking on another 70 or 80 feet, turn around, ask her to sit - then I say "Uh oh! Where's your line?". As soon as she hears "uh oh" she starts looking for it. Don't know whether she'll trust the process enough by the time we get to the trial to go out 60 feet in the water if she can't see it before she leaves, but she's well on her way. Then home for one day and we're off to San Diego for 2 weeks, then home and sleeeeeeping… and then training basics again.

6 months 29 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-20T10:11:16-06:00

Today I got smacked in the face with preconceptions: a) my pup now has 60' retrieves; b) my pup joyfully wades in the water and starts swimming; c) so does Stitch.

Yeah, well.

Those things DO happen - if I run through the entire training sequence, quickly, from the beginning when we start. It only takes 5 minutes, but we are DEFINITELY not past the place where it needs to be done.

We started with the underwater retrieve. No problem, Syn is glad to do that, partway up to her elbows in water and getting her face wet. OK.

So then I throw a bumper out about 40 feet. Um, what? But the water's cold. But I'm dry. But it's far away. But, but... I wade out towards it, she comes with me, and when she's almost swimming, she's wet enough to go get it. Duh.

So what do I do with Stitch? Same thing. I need a keeper.

Two good things about this. First, they both got back in the swing of things when I wised up. Second, this happened so I had a chance to learn the lesson. If it happened first the day of the trial, I'd be looking pretty stupid. Worse, the dogs wouldn't enjoy the outing. Older and wiser? I hope so.

6 months 28 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-19T10:10:16-06:00

Syn's excited again today, but more willing to stay with me on land (wow, good pup!). I put our gear down just before we start and she's grabbing things up and trying to hand them to me, eager to get started. We begin with straight bumper retrieves, going for more distance. She seems to have learned her lesson yesterday. Today she's very carefully watching where the bumper's going and we quickly get some good distance. 60 feet isn't out of the question at all. Then I work a bit on having her stay while I throw and go on cue (in Junior I'll be able to hold her harness, but in Apprentice she'll need a stay). I ask her to stay, wait a second, reward, ask her to stay, wait 2 seconds, reward, ask her to stay, swing the bumper, hold the bumper and wait for her to swing back into heel position, ask her to stay, reward (rinse, repeat). She's so excited it takes her 4 or 5 tries until she remembers what stay means while I wind up and toss the bumper.

On one particularly long throw, she stays well, but takes off just before I release her. I call her back - AND SHE COMES! Good pup! AND after she resets herself, she remembers where the bumper landed and is if possible even more eager to get it (when I release her this time). I'm so happy with her attitude. She's so pleased to be retrieving that she's spy-hopping on her way out to the bumper, and coming back to me so fast sometimes she skids. Very cool.

Then we go to the water. It's very clear today so we start with the sinking toy. I drop it nose-depth, then muzzle-depth twice, then eye-depth, and finally full face depth. She's retrieving it with no problem today. I'll have to remember not to muddy up the water in our warm-up period at the trial.

Next I start pitching the bumper further and further - and again, no problem. The work she did on land translates to the water, she marks the bumper falling and heads straight out for it. She'll need a 60-foot retrieve, and today we get a bunch of 60-footers and one 75 with no trouble.

Today the only Apprentice level exercise she has trouble with is a blind retrieve of the buoy line at 60 feet. She can't find it. Of course, I've spent 3 weeks "losing" her line, saying "Uh oh, where's your line? Look! There it is! Go get it!" so today when it's in the water, I say "Where is it? Go!" and she doesn't have a clue. Duh. I wade about 15 feet into the water before she figures out what I want and goes to get the line.

The only Junior exercise we haven't tried so far is to have me sitting on a boat 60 feet from shore (apparently the water trial committee really likes the term "60 feet") while a steward holds her harness, then releases her when I call her and she enters the water and swims out to me on the boat, then climbs into the boat. I don't have a boat but had a long dock, so my nephew held her on shore while I went 70 feet out on the dock, sat down and called her. SUPerDOG! Cute little torpedo! No hesitation whatsoever. Didn't try asking her to jump off the dock today, it was a bit chillier than yesterday and she was getting cold - and everything she did was brilliant, so we quit. She was MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD that I put her in the truck and then worked Stitch, but she shut up eventually.

Stitch started out looking sort of pouty but picked up quickly. We did a lot of getting the buoy ball after jumping off the dock, and that went well. She's got the hang of it again. Then I started adding more and more objects - in this exercise she has to bring me the ball, a bumper, and a line, all without getting back in the boat. Last year we had a hand signal which told her she had to get something else and another signal to tell her she was done and could board up. Today both of us started to remember the signals, and that's another thing we can work on on land. Two more things to work on. She still has a tendency to spit the articles at me rather than hold onto them until I cue a release. And her final exercise is going off on another boat while the other boat moves (yes, 60 feet) away from mine. Then a bumper is tossed off my boat, she stays, she stays... and then I cue her to jump off, get the bumper, and bring it to me. I'm happy to say that she had some difficulty staying on the dock after I tossed the bumper. Why am I happy? Because anticipation of what comes next is always a MUCH better way to fail something than not doing it at all, or doing it reluctantly. We'll do a little work on stays on land and it'll be fine. Or it won't. If she fails because she's too eager to jump off the boat, it'll have been a good day.

6 months 27 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-18T10:09:11-06:00

With NO idea what to expect, we go to the beach again. Will Syn have had nightmares about plowing along underwater with her chin in the sand and water over her eyes? Will Stitch have remembered how to get the ball without worrying? No and no, as it turns out.

When Syn spots the lake, she's excited and ready to rumble. She wants to go to the water immediately, but she's easy to call off... and call off... and call off. The third time she gives up trying to get me to go there and decides to stick around to see what sort of interesting things I'll be doing on land. It's important to work dry first. The lake is warm but Syn has not the tiniest trace of a fat layer and gets chilled fairly quickly (compared to an adult dog with more body-per-square-inch-of-skin). We get some nice short dry retrieves, and start working on more distance. At Junior level the water retrieve is only 25 feet, but at Apprentice it's 60 - a considerable difference. Junior is an introductory level. She doesn't need Jr to enter Apprentice, and I've entered her in both. The longer retrieves aren't a problem as long as she sees where the bumper lands. If she doesn't see it, she runs out 25 feet and starts looking around there. With only 2 more days of water practise, I'm glad this is a problem we can work on at home on the ground. Another little problem is my nephew, who's filming a documentary about our family. He's come to the lake with me to video the training. A problem? No, but when Syn can't find the bumper, he's a bit more interesting than looking for it... not a problem, an opportunity to overcome distractions. ONE more small problem - her grip on the large bumper isn't awfully secure, or she steps on the rope attached to it once in a while, so she drops it sometimes on the longer runs. Not a real problem, since she's allowed to drop it, and she thoroughly understands that it's her job to bring it to me, so it takes nothing further on my part to get her to turn around, pick it up again, and bring it all the way to me.

Then we move to the water with some short retrieves, then longer and longer ones. Same problem there. As long as she sees it, she'll follow the bumper to Christmas and bring it back. If she doesn't see it fall, she's looking short. On the good side, if I wade in a bit, point, pretend I'm throwing it again, and urge her to get it, she goes out further, and as soon as she spots it, she's off to get it.

Last, we try the sinking toy again. She's eager to get it and perfectly willing to put her head under water to do that, but when the whole thing is under water, she can't see where it is. She puts her head in the water 4 inches too soon and misses it. That could build up one of two ways - she could get frustrated and quit wanting to do it, or she could get used to the idea of only being able to find it when I'm holding it. We quit with her still bouncing and excited.

Stitch is fine on the retrieve, on the line, on jumping off the dock, but she's very leery of the ball. She tries to change the subject several times, so we do short easy ball retrieves with nothing else involved and no weight on the ball line to hold it down (the ball at Working level has a weighted rope attached to it so the dog has to put her head under water while swimming in order to grab the rope to retrieve the ball). Five or six short, successful ball retrieves and we're done.

6 months 26 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-17T10:03:42-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a water dog.

Summary: I taught Syn to retrieve and come using the Training Levels. We worked halfway through Level 2 in everything. Last week we worked a bit specifically on retrieving her bumper, her buoy line, and a buoy. Last week we also worked for 10 minutes on retrieving her sinking toy from an inch and a half of water in the bathtub, during which I saw her begin to understand that she had to hold her breath or blow bubbles while her nose was underwater. Three times I took her into the swim spa (large hot tub set at exercising temperature rather than hot tub temp) and alternately held her and got her to swim, rewarding hugely. I showed her where the corner seat was and told her to go to mat on the seat frequently so she never had a chance to get tired or worried. Since the seat is perfectly situated (far enough under water) for her to stand on and feel safe but to launch easily back into swimming from, we practised launching a lot.

Today: I took Syn and Stitch to the beach. I was going to work Stitch first to let Syn watch and get used to the new surroundings, but she told me quite vociferously (not to mention vocally) that she was not prepared to sit quietly tied to a tree while Stitch got to chase bumpers - surprise, she's very good at this at home. So I tied up Stitch and took Syn down to the water. It's a nice little beach, with quite a long walk out (maybe 30 feet) before it gets to swimming depth for a dog this size.

First I let her sniff the grass, the sand, and the water. Then I asked her to get excited about a bumper and tossed it for her four or five times on the grass and onto the sand. Ee hah, she was very happy to be chasing down the bumper ad returning it to my hand. Even more excited to see there were wieners involved.

Then I tossed it just into the water. A bit of a splash. No problem with that. She lipped the bumper a couple of times before she decided she could pick it up out of the water just as easily as she'd done on land. She brought it back, got her treat, and I tossed it again into the water, this time a little further out. After 5 water tosses, I thought she might be getting a little slow (which is to say she was only jumping 2 feet into the air before pouncing on the bumper in the water) so I tossed it on the grass again. That revved her up enough that I went back to the "wet work". Several times she grabbed at the bumper sideways, which meant that she had her entire muzzle underwater as she grabbed it.

She was having such a good time with the bumper that I tossed the buoy line in - no problem. In fact, it might have been more fun because she had to make a decision about where to grab it. Then I tried the big buoy ball that she won't need until she gets to Working. Again, no problem. Even the heavy ball bouncing against her as she brought it back didn't bother her.

OK, little miss, let's try the sinking toy. I walked her into the lake up to my ankles, showed her the toy, rewarded her once for reaching for it, then dropped it into the water. One part was sticking up above the water about half an inch. No problem, and she remembered the bubbles. I moved it back and forth - she had a bit of trouble when the whole thing was an inch under the water - mostly with knowing where it was, I think, but she's beginning to understand that if she reaches where she saw it drop, she'll find it. At one point she reached under the water to get it, didn't hit it, and then kept her head under the water for at least 4 seconds feeling around for it (that's a VERY good thing).

Right, back to the bumper and some general silliness. Twice she was bringing it back to me so fast she tripped in the water and plowed in nose first, with her whole head underwater and her tail trying to teach her to do a somersault. I was afraid this would scare her, but she wasn't bothered at all. (EE HAH).

And here comes the big test. Am I going to spend the rest of the week trying to teach her to swim? No, I'm not. With her beside me, rewarding her regularly, I walked into the water (what're we doing, ma? We're walkin' in the water! You and me, walkin' in the water! Fun, right?!). Yeah, sweetie, it's all fun and games until someone winds up in a cone... with my heart in my mouth but no hesitation, I continue walking. She walked beside me, she walked beside me, she splashed the odd paw, and she was swimming. No hesitation, no fuss, no worry, no bother. Walking, swimming. Then walking again, heading desperately for shore... no, just walking, hanging with me, turning willingly back to where she had to swim again. EE EE HAH HAH!

We swam and walked for another 5 minutes and then went to shore. I had a friend hold her while I walked back out to swimming depth. I called her and she came into the water and swam like a little torpedo to me.

Further summary: she doesn't have the distance she's going to need for the water trial, but this IS, after all, the first time she's ever seen real water in a real lake. She was brilliant. I'm SO excited. I was hoping we could go to the trial and (pass or fail) put on a reasonable performance and have her enjoy herself. If she couldn't enjoy it, I wouldn't put her in the water. Now I think I'd have to kick her around the parking lot to convince her not to enjoy the experience. And she SWAM. And she put her head under water. And she retrieved. I am SO pumped.

Oh, Stitch was grand too. She remembered she could enjoy jumping off things (a dock in this case), and how to get back on it, and her retrieving, of course, was exemplary.

Another example of long memories, though. TWO YEARS AGO, in a water trial where Stitch didn't think she could enjoy jumping off perfectly good boats, and in a fairly swift-flowing river, she was supposed to jump off a boat and retrieve a bumper, the buoy line, and a buoy that I'd "dropped" overboard. By the time I had convinced her to get off the boat and she'd retrieved the bumper and the line, the ball was long gone downstream. She chased it quite a way, but by then it was heading for "open ocean" and she had no hope of catching it. Finally in frustration she turned and headed for shore, sat down with a thunk and sat there glaring at me. The last thing I wanted to do was frustrate her that much, but it happened.

Today, she cheerfully jumped off the dock and retrieved the bumper and the line. There was a bit of a breeze and the ball was heading for the other side of the beach. She chased it a bit, then veered off and headed for shore. I invited her to get the ball, and cued LEFT for her to turn back toward it. She did veer left, but then headed for shore again. Again I cued LEFT and GET IT and GOOD GIRL and YOU CAN DO IT, and she did. She believed me. She went left and got the ball. Don't THINK we didn't have a big party when she got back to the dock!

So today was a truly superb day. I'm thrilled. If I can get Syn to Courier Water Dog with the joy she showed today... well, I think a lot of people will be thrilled.

Oh, and while I was gassing up the truck this afternoon (no internet access at the lake) I got notification that, out of 814 entries, my photo of Syn & Stitch is going in the Nutmeg PWD 2012 calendar (Google it, order one, this is the BEST calendar, and proceeds go to research). Meh, OK sort of day...

sinking toy buoy line

bumpers

buoy ball Photos cadged from www.4mypwds.com

6 months 23 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-14T20:13:28-06:00

At the Edmonton shows it's all outdoors. We get set up with 2 tents, and I spend a TON of money getting back into dog shows (my 6 mo puppy DOES have 2 points, after all… ) - bought a hand dryer, a pair of fishtail scissors, a small grooming table, new shampoo and conditioner, a couple of shade cloths. And toys, of course, and… and…

we already have a couple of little red wagons.This is one of the best things I've ever bought. In the early mornings I put all my junk in the wagon and both dogs - partly because I didn't want to have to discuss Lazy Leash with Syn from the parking lot to the tents, partly because I didn't want her legs to get wet from the dew before she went in the ring.

Anyway, the first day, Stitch finished her Rally Excellent title and I pulled her for the rest of the show. After that she had nothing to do but agility with my friend. Then Syn went into her third Rally Novice trial. She was doing fine, and in the middle of one exercise, she suddenly dropped her butt, threw up her head, and started running. Full of the joy of puppyhood, having gotten rather too little exercise in the last week, she cast off the surly bonds of earth and RAN. Fortunately she was on lead and in spite of my recent whining, she DOES know about Lazy Leashes, so she wasn't flying around the ring, she was only flying around ME. She went a dozen times in one direction, then turned and went 8 or 9 in the other. I'm sure I could have stopped her, but gosh, she was having such a wonderful time, and I was just trying really hard not to wet myself I was laughing so hard. Finally she stopped and looked at me. "What are we gonna do now, ma?" Oh, I don't know… how about finishing this serpentine? "OK!" so we went on and finished and, to my amazement (or perhaps horror), she qualified (with a magnificent 74/100), so that was her title.

And in conformation she got nothing but again did well, maintained her requisite 2-squirrel-jumps, had a good time and trucked around the ring brilliantly.

The next day, I took her in Rally again to try to redeem ourselves in the eyes of our fellow exhibitors, if nothing else. I heard this conversation: "Wow, did you see Sue Ailsby's dog totally lose control in the ring yesterday?" "Hey, give her a break, she's only 6 months old!" "Are kidding? She's in Rally! She can't be 6 months old!" And she did a decent job. That was definitely too many tries with no duration built up yet in the training, but decent nevertheless. One interesting thing was that in the EXACT same spot as the day before, her butt suddenly dropped and her head came up, but before she took off into the air I said Syn, no (our Zen cue). She looked at me, said "OK" and we continued on with the course, so when we were done she got a pretty lively snuggle for sticking with me. Got a lovely compliment from the judge about our relationship - that made my day.

And ignored again in conformation, but again she was exceptionally good. I really had thought it would take these 6 shows to get her to know which direction we were supposed to go in the ring, so we're WAY ahead of the game.

The third day, since we'd pulled from everything but agility and Syn in conformation, we relaxed a lot. My friend took Syn in the ring and I got to look at her. Apparently in the last week she'd grown about 3" of leg. In Calgary she looked like a nice solid happy puppy. This day she looked like Ichabod Crane with a big grin on his face, scrawny legs everywhere. Eeuw, time to go home and get used to that height. She's almost as big as Stitch!

The last day we only had Stitch in agility. I pulled Syn from conformation and spent the day just hanging around. Talked about using PWDs as service dogs with the parents of a couple of cheerful boys. Then, while we were sitting in the shade watching agility, a pair of young ladies came to stand beside us (7 and 9? 6 and 8?). They politely ask if they can pet Syn and I agree. She's a little leery, willing but uncertain. I'm not concerned about her damaging them, she's had plenty of practise coming to me for protection when she's getting overwhelmed. The petting goes well and the younger girl is eyeing the bungie tug toy I'm holding, so I hand it to her (I know by now that they have two Schipperkes). She holds it out to Syn, who immediately latches on and starts pulling. Soon the Syn and the kid are tugging around the area, Syn going mostly backwards, the kid going mostly forwards while firmly declaring "I will NOT let go! I will NOT let go!", and her sister coming over to give her a hand once in a while, else they'd have wound up back in Calgary… much hilarity ensued, everyone had a marvellous time, and shazam, Syn is no longer leery of children. I owe part of this little victory to Wangchuk Dorji, our visitor from Bhutan, who's been living with us for 6 weeks. He knows nothing about dogs, but loves them. He and Syn have been diligently teaching each other to play tug since he arrived. So to the wonderful Dobermans, the wonderful girls, and our wonderful friend Wangchuk, THANK YOU!

Oh, while we were there doing nothing much all day, we entered a Canine Good Neighbour test. And passed with flying colours. Good puppy! So now she's Hunter Sync Or Swym At Dragonair RN CGN who loves dogs and children. That's a successful trip!

And now what have I learned?

I'm feeling much better physically than I have in a decade. I can even show my own dog in conformation.

I WILL hold on to Syn's joy with both hands. I will NOT allow it to escape.

She is one very smart little cookie - which is a good thing and a bad thing. Does she know she's in the ring? Hey, she knew the EXACT SPOT in the ring where she had gotten The Rips the day before. EVERY experience has to be a happy experience with this little squirrel.

My RV is getting an upgrade. I love my RV, but it needs a generator and a real closet and some other fixes. What does this have to do with Syn? Look at it as a commitment to spend some time actually showing my own dog.

She's a morning pooper ;*D Nice to know. And, having gone on leash for 2 weeks, she now thoroughly understands, and takes advantage of, the pee cue.

So now we're home and we can relax and fix the Lazy Leash and other things and get back into the Levels work… oh, wait, no, we're 18 days away from a water trial that I promised to support. Where? Yep, 8 hours away, back near Edmonton. I had hoped to have Stitch ready for Courier (the 4th level - Junior Water Dog, Apprentice WD, Working WD, Courier WD) this year, but it's been so wet and mucky we haven't even been able to get down to the water to practise - and if we could, the high water levels have destroyed my dock. We'll be going to a lake for a "holiday" this week to see if Stitch remembers enough from last year to give a credible performance in Working again, and introduce Syn to the water. She's doing all the Junior exercises - sort of. Today she retrieved a sinking toy from 2" of water in the bathtub, she swims with me in the hot tub, and she can ride on golf carts (which are sort of like boats, right?), so we've done all the practising we can short of actually going in real water.

Ah well, I don't care if she passes or not (I have a bridge for sale as well… ) but if she'll have a good time playing water trial like she did playing Rally, I'll put her in. If she won't enjoy it, they can thank me for the donation ahead of time.

6 months 22 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-08-14T16:03:35-06:00

And so we went on our Big Trip.

A friend arrived with an adult Giant Schnauzer bitch, a 14-mo Giant bitch, and an adult male Malinois. Syn was leery to begin with but has good experiences of Giants so quickly decided Marquee (the younger one) was worth a good romp. The Mal, too, was fun, though he tends to play rough when he gets going so he wasn't allowed any free time (dog show coming up, y'know).

Then we drove 3 hours to my son and d-i-l's, stayed overnight, and on for another 5 hours to Calgary. We got there a day early, so had lots of time to settle in, get the RV set up and find our way around the huge show site. Syn and Stitch were once again brilliant in the car. I love travelling with dogs when I have to occasionally check to make sure they're in their crate - they're so quiet I might have forgotten them at the last truck stop…

I had rented a golf cart - one of the smarter things I've ever done - to get around the show site in. There were trams but it was hot and nice not to have to stand in parking lots waiting for the "bus". I could drive the golf cart right up to the grooming/obedience building, and close to the conformation and agility rings.

So we started. The Giant/Mal friend is one of the best groomers on the continent and has shown many Portuguese Water Dogs (and in fact evaluated Syn's litter before I got there), so I got some excellent tips on shampoos, conditioners, and what to do about Syn's floppy topknot and muttonchops. Spent most of the first show day grooming. Then - oh, frabjous day, I forgot the part where many dogs are usually absent the first day of a show and pulled up to Syn's conformation ring just as the breed finished. Actually, though, that was a really good thing because if we'd made it in time, I would have taken her into the ring unsure of where she was or why she was there. Since we got there late but prepared, with treats, chairs, shade, etc, I just sat down in the shade and let her gawk for a couple of hours, rewarding her for looking at other dogs of various strange shapes and sizes. That helped a lot. Not enough it turned out, but a lot.

Stitch failed obedience by following me out of the ring on the down stay. She wasn't happy. Don't know what that's about. Worried me a bit.

Both dogs rode brilliantly around the grounds in the golf cart, doing the queen wave at everyone we passed.

The next day I managed to make it to the conformation ring on time, and so did my friend who was going to handle Syn. Didn't get a look, but Syn did very well in the ring. Hey, she says, we're running AROUND the ring! How cool is that?!

Syn was very comfortable in the conformation ring, but not comfortable in the waiting ring. Too many dogs, too much bustle, too many people. I was afraid she might be a little jumpy in the ring because of how she felt in the waiting ring so after we were done, we once again went and sat nearby to watch the proceedings. I thought that I would move closer and closer to the waiting ring as she grew more and more comfortable, but…

There was an adult male Doberman sitting nearby. He was looking at a toy I was holding, so I handed it to him. He started staring fixedly at Syn with the toy in his mouth, then dropping it repeatedly in front of her. She'd finally decide to dare trying to pick it up, he'd say OH BOY! and she'd hurriedly drop it and cuddle up next to my leg again. They had just finished negotiating how to play with each other (and the area had cleared out considerably) when the big dog's teenage niece came along. She and Syn took one look at each other and Just Knew. Too bad they were wearing leashes - they could have had a MUCH grander time without, though the time was grand enough as it was. And that's all it took. Once Syn's New Friends left, she had a new attitude and flirted with every single dog that walked anywhere near her, even pulling on the lead a bit to try to get closer to them. She particularly aimed for Giant Schnauzers, Dobes, and, apparently extrapolating, Rotts, Standard Schnauzers, and MinPins.

And Stitch failed obedience again by lying down on the sit. That's enough of that, I pulled her from obedience the rest of the trip. Hello duh. Do I KNOW this dog doesn't like surprises (yes, I do)? Did we PRACTISE obedience before we came here (no, we didn't)? Do *I* deserve to get laughed out of the ring (yes, I do)?

The third day was huge, with all her friends in the Giant Schnauzer Specialty AND the all-breed show. The morning started with Stitch earning a perfect score in Rally Excellent and Syn earning a 99/100. Wow! Unfortunately they won't go down in the record book that way since I lost 11 points on Stitch and 10 points on Syn for handler errors. They're both looking for "I am handlercapped" t-shirts. Still, good rounds, and my widdle baby puppy has a Rally leg!

The handler/friend didn't make it to ringside when it was time for Syn to go in conformation (she was still in the Specialty ring), so I had to show her myself - and I did, and it wasn't awful. It's been a long time since I even imagined I could run around a ring, but it actually wasn't too bad (aside from the fact that I wasn't wearing decent show clothes OR decent underwear - not cool to knock yourself out while running around the show ring). And Syn got Best of Winners for 2 points! EE HAH! A Rally leg and 2 points! Wow!

The fourth day Stitch got another Rally Excellent leg, Syn got another Rally Novice leg, and we were cannon fodder in the conformation ring. I was very happy with Syn's conformation behaviour, though, and she was bold and confident in the waiting ring. My going-around-the-show-ring criteria is "she has to do a jackrabbit bounce at least twice or the outing was unsuccessful". So far so good.

One behaviour she needs for conformation that we haven't practised much, but which she picked up immediately in the ring, is the ability to move out in front of the handler, putting a couple of ounces of pressure on the leash so she knows where I am without having to look back at me. She got it. Immediately. And her Lazy Leash went completely out the window. It's GONE. Between learning to put pressure on the show leash, a brief outing on a Flexi-lead, and her newfound attraction to other dogs, this day was enormously frustrating for me until I finally made a decision. Stop fussing and let her pull until these shows are over and we get back home? Or take several days off and remind her now of her job? Nope, I'll stop fussing. She's doing so well in the show ring I'll wait until we get home to solve this problem.

Now (sorry for jumping back and forth between IS and WAS - I should have written this while I was at the show, but it was pretty much get-up-at-5, work-all-day, fall-into-bed the whole time) we have 2 days to rest and drive 5 hours to Edmonton for another 4 days of shows.

What have I learned so far?

Should have practised obedience with Stitch. (facepalm)

Should have practised show-lead-walking vs Lazy Leash with Syn. It's OK, but if I'd practised, I wouldn't have remedial LL to do when I get home.

I'd like to send a bouquet of dog biscuits to those lovely Dobermans (and their very kind owners) who played with Syn and told her that dogs at dog shows aren't really scary. In Edmonton a woman introduced herself as their breeder (she started the conversation by saying "So THIS is the brown Portie everyone's talking about!"), so I got to tell her what I thought of her dogs.

Also to the Malinois who barked a lot and eventually convinced Syn that dogs in crates who swear at her really have nothing to do with her.

It's very difficult for a 6 mo puppy to switch back and forth between conformation and Rally. Her Rally scores will be going down every day, I can tell. She's not ready to switch, and she's had no work on duration of behaviours - that is, performing for 3 minutes at a time with no treats. She's going to start gawking. Still, I'm not assuming she actually knows how to do any of these behaviours, I'm sort of herding her through the courses.

She actually knows a lot. I can't WAIT to get back to the Levels and teach her more. Dear little Tat.

6 months 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-23T21:03:51-06:00

I got a smack upside the head this evening. I went to a mall parking lot to meet a guy to buy a new used phone, and took Syn along - more for identification (I'm the fat broad with the brown and white dog) than anything. No treats. We got there about ten minutes early, so I tried working her rally behaviours. Well golly gosh. She looked like the quintessential country bumpkin. Wow! 2 people walking through the parking lot! Look! A hamburger wrapper blowing! A SEAGULL! She tried to pretend she was listening and working with me, but she actually missed me once, she was trying to give me a front while looking behind me at… something.

So tomorrow morning we'll go back with a plan. Treats not evident but definitely present. Fifteen minutes of gawking time out of the car. Then a warm-up of Level 1 stuff - Zen and Touch and such, then some Watch, moving into short bits of heeling and some retrieve work in hand. THEN we'll try some rally behaviours.

Sigh. Fortunately the 4-day show next weekend will include 2 days of conformation before her rally trials start, so she'll have had 2 days of gawking, and I'll definitely be letting her know that show sites (and parking lots) are places where treats might happen to a puppy who can pay attention.

5 months 38 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-20T09:37:08-06:00

By luring a show stack, I was getting a very nice show stack - but not significantly slowing down her little stamp-stamp front-foot-shuffle (which really looks like it's pointing out that she's standing: See, I'm standing! stamp-stamp, yep, that's standing all right! The only problem with the stamp-stamp is that she gradually moves her front feet forward or backwards to a position I don't want them in. Got to get rid of the stamp.

So this morning we went to shaping a silent-body (or, more appropriately, a silent-paw) stand.

I half-cup of her kibble is about 100 pieces, and a small handful is 10, which nicely divides a meal into 10 rounds of 10 clicks, more or less.

It took 25 for her to figure out she was being clicked for standing, and not for swinging her head, or wagging her tail, or stamping her feet, or sneezing.

Then she'd give me stands for 5 clicks, and then forget and take another 5 to remember again.

At 50 she had the stand, and we started working on minor duration. We got to 3 seconds. Every 15 clicks, she'd decide there must be some easier way to get kibble - lie down? Roll over? Look away? Oh! Oh! Dive into her crate (had to pull the door open first)... nothing. Dang, ma, what'd'you...oh! Stand!

I'm happy with 3 seconds for the first meal. Now I'll give her a couple of hours to absorb it and work it from the beginning again.

Two observations. First, interesting to watch part of my brain screaming "her tail is down! Her feet aren't square! Her back is hunched! She looks terrible! Don't click THAT!" while the rest of me is cheerfully clicking her for keeping 4 on the floor for half a second.

Second, when I switched from clicking and tossing the treat for that half-second stay to clicking and handing her the treat, I immediately lost the quiet paws and went back to stamp-stamp as she ate. Note to self: at least one more session before you try handing her the treats again.

We shaped stand for half of lunch, and then tried the lured show stack again. HUGE improvement. Still some stamping, but it's much diminished. She looks now like her feet are sticky - they WANT to stay on the floor. So much easier to get a good movement of her centre of gravity forward with sticky feet!

Then I tried the stand-the-dog-and-walk-around-her for Rally - and got it!! Well, 2 out of 3 times. Wow! Then I sat down and read the Rally rules again and there's no Stand-and-walk-around in Novice. Which means I don't have to worry about it, unless of course she aces Novice and I get to boost her up to Advanced. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Pardon me while I change my underwear and try to catch my breath.

Anyway, it's utterly amazing what an improvement I got when I (dare I say it) made a plan and actually taught the little muffin something instead of just trying to get her to do it.

I have a vague recollection of having made this discovery forty or fifty previous times in my life.

5 months 37 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-18T09:16:57-06:00

Today I decided to stop pretending that Syn knows how to be a show dog and start teaching her. (duh).

We spent breakfast on teaching her to keep her back feet still while moving her front feet, by moving her front feet back and forth in an arc so she has to throw her weight back on her rear to lift her front. This is a LOT easier with Giant Schnauzers, being bigger, heavier dogs. Syn can move any foot whether there's any weight on it at the time or not. We used 3/4 cup of kibble before she started to get the idea, but once she got it, it was pretty good. We'll try again later (3/4 cup is about half her allotted breakfast).

Then we had a visit from a friend - a 14-week-old Giant Schnauzer. Syn seems to have gotten over her fear of other dogs.

I must say it isn't easy to take good photos of two puppies at once.

2nd Stacking session at lunch. I did this one on the grooming table - much easier to get her balanced. We got the back feet fairly well anchored, but alas we have built in a step-step with the front feet as she chews each treat. I put my hand on her withers and applied a bit of pressure, thinking to thus keep her front feet still while she chewed and reward her for it. I could feel her weight shift as she tried to move her front feet, but couldn't because of the pressure on her withers. As I opened my mouth to Yes, she shrank to the table to get out from under my hand and THEN moved her front feet. Sigh. We'll work on that. At least the back feet are coming along nicely. On the good side, there's nothing wrong with her front, so at least when she shuffles her front paws she's not showing off some hideous deformity ;*D

Next we'll have to work on letting me open her mouth to show her teeth without her trying to grab the treat in my hand. I'm thinking this won't be much of a discussion, just a quick reminder of hand Zen should do it.

Speaking of Zen, now that Stitch is home again, both Stitch and I were getting rather fed up with me trying to talk to Stitch and Syn constantly interfering. Also it's kind of hard to type when Stitch is sitting on my lap and Syn is wrestling with her. Between meals this morning, I asked Stitch to come over and gave Syn her Zen cue (No). I had to push her away once, and once I used the mealtime Zen cue (This is for Stitch) but after that she GOT it. I've had to remind her twice so far today, but she really understood the food Zen cue to mean "Stay the heck away, this is petting-Stitch time". When I'm done petting Stitch, I ostentatiously invite Syn to come over and get a squirrel-rub as well.

Afternoon musings - we have a nice young man from Bhutan staying with us while studying for a couple of months. He really likes the dogs and is constantly touching them, playing with them, asking them to do tricks, and watching me train. I don't often think about what watchers think of how I'm training, but this morning it occurred to me that I'm sort of glad I don't have a Buddhist in my house watching me yank my dogs around by the neck.

5 months 31...

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-12T09:32:00-06:00

In Syn's Out & About class today, while everyone else was working diligently on Lazy Leashes and dogs paying attention, I was working just as diligently on having her walk on a tight show lead, leading out ahead of me, and clicking while she was NOT looking at me. My goodness, she's a clever puppy. Here's the problem: I have taught my dog to walk on a loose leash, and now I need her to lean into the leash. I've taught her to stay with me, and now I need her to lead out ahead. I've taught her to check in often or watch me, and now I need her to look where she's going.

I'm quite sure I've mentioned how every bit of training you do is guaranteed to interfere with some other bit of training. The first thing that happened was that when I tightened the leash, she backed up to relieve the pressure. Thinking to explain it in more detail under more control, I stood her on a bench and put pressure on the collar with my hand, thinking to click her for NOT relieving the pressure and then for leaning into it. Oops. I was a bit too slow with the click and when she tried to relieve the pressure and couldn't, she put up a good imitation of a hissy fit, bucking and kicking. I let go, got ready, and started again. Oh! That's strange, but OK. Lean into the pressure and get a click. You are one weird person, mom!

Once I was ready to train when I started training, it went fine. She picked it up right away. In the hour of the class, we didn't get more than a few seconds duration on her looking where she was going, but she picked the whole thing up nicely, and rarely sat. An excellent first session.

It's 2 weeks to her show debut. Also 2 weeks to her rally debut. She's going to be SO confused: lead out, stand, don't look at me! Stay with me, sit, hey! Watch me!

5 months 30 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-11T16:46:17-06:00

This is where we switch from counting days to counting months, and it doesn't work out right. Syn's not 6 months old until next week, so I guess I'll just make myself look dumber and keep counting 5 months until we get there. Sigh.

Anyway, apparently I'm a much better trainer when I don't have an allergy headache (poplar trees. Lovely to look at, splendid to hold, but if you inhale it... yuck.). Took some heavy duty meds last night and woke up this morning ready to actually train my dog. 2 1/2 weeks to her Big Deal Show debut, conformation and rally, so today I started teaching her to stand this morning (rolling eyes at myself). She'll need stand for conformation AND for rally. It's OK (really it is!) if your show dog sits once in a while in the ring. Not cool if she's slamming her butt to the ground with enormous dedication and enthusiasm every time you almost think about slowing down.

Yesterday I taught both Syn and her Giant Schnauzer buddy Hawk to catch. We started with large pieces of bread. I began by holding a piece high over her head and lowering it slowly to her mouth. When she was anticipating getting it by jumping up, I started letting her have it by dropping it when her mouth got close to my hand, then further and further away. She missed the first few, but I gradually adjusted my hand position until she could catch them by just opening her mouth. Then she almost missed a couple but snagged them after they hit her nose and before they hit the ground. By comparison, Hawk's huge mouth in an almost-unmissable target.

Then I started lowering my hand slowly toward her mouth and then dropping it before she started to jump up - et voila, she's catching.

Finally, I stood back and tossed each piece in an arc from my hand to her mouth, but the last half of the arc had it dropping in exactly the same position as when I had just dropped it.

From bread, we went to bits of turkey (so they had really good incentive to catch), and from there to kibble.

My dog can catch!

Then I made it useful by capturing her standing and rewarding that about 2 dozen times, then tossing treats at her only when she was standing. When I noticed her starting to sit and then deliberately remaining standing, I started putting a cue on it (Out...Standing!).

As I'm typing, she's very busy offering me stands.

Before bedtime we had another session of capturing stands. She had it the second time. An occasional error, but she's really standing, not crouching, not almost-sitting. She's in a nice, comfortable stand which could easily be pulled yforward into a show stack. Not good enough for me to walk around her (for rally) yet (she wants to watch me all the way around, and her feet move when she does), but when the stand is very solid we'll do a few more walk-around sits and walk-around downs and then move on to the walk-around stand. A good day.

5 months 28 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-09T22:24:34-06:00

In the last couple of days I've discovered a few more indications that I've been ignoring Syn (and her behaviour). The problem isn't limited to the Lazy Leash scenario.

This morning I gave Syn and the Giant Schnauzer that I traded Stitch for (just for the week) a breakfast of salmon patties instead of the more normal beef or chicken patties (which the Giant Schnauzer had polished off cheerfully). It's a ridiculous fact of life that most Giants don't like fish and Hawkins took almost five minutes of picking politely before she finished hers, while Syn inhaled deeply and then was left staring at an empty dish. So she went over and tried to push (90-pound) Hawkins off her dish. Hawkins told her to get lost, but she didn't listen and got a large open mouth upside the head for her troubles (associated death-screeches followed by pouting as close to the dish as she dared to sit).

She snagged a head of lettuce off the kitchen counter this afternoon, and almost succeeded in snatching a piece of cheese out of my hand as I walked by her.

And she almost got the police called on us when she ate-and-clawed her way out of a cloth crate while I was out and walked all over the house setting off alarms. Greeted me cheerfully at the door.

We spent this afternoon working on Zen. Floor Zen. Hand Zen. Dropping-food Zen. Bait-bag Zen. Pocket Zen. DOOR Zen, for Pete's sake, which has been perfect for MONTHS.

"Oh," she says. "Nice to see you're back! I missed you!"

5 months 26 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-07T12:58:49-06:00

We went to a new class yesterday - a hodge-podge group of friends-with-puppies, all contributing teaching time, class space, or snacks. Potluck dog class. The others are a couple of Mini Dachsies, 4 12 wo Wheatens, 2 11 wo Scotties, and a 12 wo Giant Schnauzer. Syn, being the oldest, knows "everything" BUT.

But clearly at the agility camp last weekend while I was admiring her ability to deal with people and other dogs, she had been learning that she could pull on the leash when I wasn't paying attention - and she did. Whether I was paying attention or not. Compounded by the fact that she was wearing a new show lead that got caught on her hair and was too short. Back to square one on Lazy Leash - and I do mean back to the beginning. For breakfast we had a session of give-to-pressure, and we'll go for a walk this afternoon.

...

We spent the afternoon in the park watching the world go by. Frustrating to start with. Syn thought she could walk along with her nose buried in everything we passed, and gave no indication of ever having been taught about loose leashes. As a friend of mine said "The 12th time the Zen cue doesn't work, KNOCK IT OFF comes into play". Another new adventure that's obviously been creeping up on us that I hadn't noticed - she can wait 10 seconds after a Zen cue, then dive right into whatever it was I told her not to dive into, be it a bait pouch, my hand, someone else's hand, or miscellaneous non-edibles on the ground.

I felt like strangling her, but once I got back into training mode, things picked up relatively quickly and she settled down. Interesting how quickly anything that came within muzzle-range became fair game. Also interesting how quickly it became unfair game when I started training her again.

We'll do another city walk tomorrow morning, with treats left in strategic locations en route.

5 months 23 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-07-04T17:48:46-06:00

Here's a photo from last week when we were working in the park with the Out & About class, where we came to the steps of the Legislative Building and I asked Syn to Relax. Not perfect (right back paw is slightly gripping the cement), but not bad considering all the other dogs, random people on bicycles and skateboards, and frisbee-tossers.

Syn and I just got back from a jam-packed loooong weekend of agility camp. Not that Syn was entered in an agility camp at 5 months - no, Stitch and I were entered. Syn came along because I didn't have a babysitter. Good news, though, the camp was broken up into 4 daily segments, two of which were agility "stuff", one was clicker, and one was physiotherapy, massage, warmups, cooldowns, etc. So Stitch did the agility parts and Syn did most of the other parts.

In a room with 6 other dogs, doing shaping or having a massage - that's easy stuff. Not being scared when strange dogs are walking right by her, that's tough. Maintaining her composure when other people want to talk to her - hey, she's 5 months old! Keeping a Lazy Leash when returning to a room where she was stuffed with treats - hard, hard, hard. But the one I would have bet against was remaining calm when I wasn't within 5 feet of her, whether in a crate or on a mat. Oh my goodness, did Little Miss come through! She was BRILLIANT. During supper she lay down on the floor with Stitch in a chair beside her. Stood up once in a while. Watched everyone go by. Stood up once in a while, lay down again. Went to sleep. Followed conversations. Brilliant.

I started her in her crate with a chewstick. Had to tell her once or twice to hush up but after that she was quiet. Lazy Leash was... pretty good. Excellent considering all the new things she had to look at and think about. Her training is really coming through. I was afraid she'd be overwhelmed by the big shows we're going to next month, but I'm not concerned now. She handled everything with rational enthusiasm.

AND she found a friend. Hawkins is 90 pounds of 14-month-old Giant Schnauzer. The first few times they met, Syn was overwhelmed, but five minutes into this meeting, they were BFF (best friends forever). It's 8:40 AM, and they've been playing non-stop since 5:30. 6 hours yesterday afternoon. Oh, did I mention Hawkins is here for a week-long sleepover while Stitch, who pulled a groin muscle at camp, is having an easy week at Hawkins' house of entertaining children and having her tummy iced.

And I must say what a pleasure it is to travel long distances with dogs who are well-trained and quiet in their crates in the car!

5 months 17 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-28T21:55:28-06:00

Yesterday we did a 2 sessions on Rally behaviours - walking around behind her while she was sitting and down (it's getting better, but not great yet), and a bit on SHUTTING UP while I worked with Stitch. Also coming but not great, though it would have been a lot better if I had been actually working on it, with her in the crate with an open door, or on a mat, instead of just shutting her in the crate and remembering once in a while to drop in a treat when she was quiet.

This morning she was out in the yard and screeched, then ran into the house. Immediately she turned and ran out again and this time barked in a high-pitched "you better watch out but don't hurt me" voice. By then I was looking out the window. There was a cat crouched down in the yard. Stitch, hearing Syn bark-screaming, ran out to see what was going on, chased the cat twice around the dog yard, and then watched it sail over the fence. As soon as it jumped for the fence, Syn started running toward it, shaking her fist and, in her best deep aggressive voice, yelled "Yeah! And don't come back!" Too funny.

This afternoon we went to our Out and About class again. She walked all the way to the class (maybe a block) with a loose lead, past kids and canoes and lots of dogs and geese. Then she walked with the class on a loose leash. She was BRILLiant. She got a little too close to one of the other dogs and got snarked at, and screeched, but no harm done and after 5 minutes of me acting totally normal and asking for sits and downs, she was fine.

We stopped at a little play area with a very short plastic slide up 3 very small steps. She climbed up the steps - as she had climbed everything we had passed the whole class - benches, steps, platforms, fence rails. Then she asked if she should slide down the little slide and as I was moving my hand toward her to either lead her down or hold her back, she slid down and walked jauntily on to the next adventure.

Half an hour later we stopped at a large play structure with many platforms at different heights, things to climb and jump over and go through. And a very long tube slide at a very steep angle. Some people tried to get their dogs to go down the slide but only one would, and reluctantly. Syn and I played on other parts until everyone was gone and then I was (really) just wondering if she'd climb all the way to the top with me. Yes, she would. Then the instructor looked up through the slide tube and called her and it must have looked a lot like the tunnels from her previous class because she slid down the long slide. Oh, oh, my poor little baby! Is she OK? Hey, where is she? Oh - she's right back up her beside me again! And she's asking me to roll more treats down the slide so she can go get them! And she did - eight times, each time running back up to me to go again. It was amazing. Too bad this is a girl puppy because, people, she has steel balls. See video of one of her slides here.

After tonight, I think teeters and jumping off boats may not be a really big deal later on. Tired and happy. We'll be away for a few days. Stitch and I are going to an agility camp. Syn's coming along for the ride.

5 months 14 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-25T21:07:45-06:00

We had Syn's last K9 Fun 101 class this morning. Lots of fun. They set up a short course with some of the equipment we've done over the course of the class - a couple of very low jumps, an open tunnel, a collapsed tunnel (with somebody holding it slightly open), 2 barrel-racing poles to go around in different directions, a weave channel, and chalked boxes to sit in, down, and do a trick. We got there a little late so we ran last, which gave me enough time to notice that everybody was having trouble with their leashes, so I took Syn's off and ran her "naked". Had NO trouble keeping her attention, and I was very pleased with how she saw each obstacle and was interested in what she was supposed to do with it. The last tunnel she was truly aimed at, and I sent her from more than 5 feet back. The first time we ran the course we did her great relax on her side on the floor in the middle of the ring for a trick, and the second time we did her swing finish. Lots of fun.

She's still got her Out and About class in 4 days, and some friends are working on putting together a cooperative teaching-and-training class. Syn needs some conformation practise in the next month, and a little bit of rally practise wouldn't hurt either, though I'm pretty confident we could wing that.

For supper, we worked on L2 Sit, Step 4 - Dog sits as you walk around her. This will definitely be part of her rally tests next month, and it's something that we've been struggling with for over a month. By "struggling with", of course, is that I've been trying to explain to her that she has to stay sitting in place while *I* walk around, while she cheerfully and willingly jumps into heel position, so the only "struggling" part is mine.

Well, tonight she got it. She doesn't quite believe it yet, but she got it. I was working really hard to lure her into holding her sit while I walked around her, and then I thought I'd try it with her lying down. About the fifth time around, she let me get about a third of the way around, and then she rolled on her hips to watch me come up on the other side of her rather than trying to keep an eye on me all the way around. EE HAH! We tried that another ten times, then tried it sitting again. She's not quite sure she should stay where she is when she's sitting, but it was much better than it's been and I got successfully around her five or six times before we ran out of supper.

5 months 11 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-22T18:00:35-06:00

Big news today. I dropped a sock going from the washer to the dryer. I called Syn over, pointed at the sock, and asked her to get it. This is well beyond our expertise level, and really, I was just thinking that I really need Stitch to come home and get back to work - but Syn reached down, picked up the sock, and handed it to me. !!

5 months 10 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-21T22:06:26-06:00

Syn had a BIG day today. It started with a visit from an 11-week-old Giant Schnauzer puppy. Since she decided in class last week that dogs are fun, she was more than ready to be a good hostess. It took over an hour of this:

and this:

to finally arrive at this:

A grand time was had by all.

We started a new class this evening. It's called "Out and About" and we're going to meet each week in a different location around town. The interesting thing is that most of the dogs in this class are working through over-reactivity problems. I was afraid it might be too much for Little Miss, but I was very careful.

We stayed back away from the class for quite a while. I clicked her for a loose leash, for keeping her attention on me, for looking at the other dogs when they barked or threatened each other, for staying in heel position - basically for anything she did. It took her about 5 clicks to decide that their swearing at each other didn't mean anything to her.

First the class went for a walk. We let everyone else go ahead of us, partly because I can't walk very well, and partly because I didn't want to need to back up or stop and have to worry about running into a reactive dog. This is the first walk we've ever gone on when I was trying to go somewhere. The walks we've taken at home are just sauntering along on a longish leash letting her sniff. This was different.

The hardest part was remembering not to walk in front of me. When she did, I shortened the leash enough to keep her from dodging over to my right, and then continued to walk slowly forward so she jumped over to my left where she should have been all along. By the end of the walk, she was much better, but it's a continuing project. I'm very happy with how good her foundation is. The work we've done on Lazy Leash, on moving out of my way, on focus - this walk, which could have been a discussion from beginning to end, was a simple 3 Minute Behaviour. We put together what she already knows to produce something new. It was exciting to see how well she did.

The second hardest part was remembering that we were going for a walk when she found a really good smell. She'd stop dead with her nose buried in the sidewalk. The good news is that as soon as she felt the collar begin to tighten, she came right along.

Next the class stopped and sat down on benches around a fountain. A great place for a lesson! One of the participants had an older kid who ran many times around the fountain while we all kept our dogs' attention. The kid didn't disturb Syn at all. Then, one at a time, the dogs were walked around the fountain. That didn't bother her either, even when one or another would "go off".

We moved on and practised sit stays and down stays. Syn had a hard time getting into staying, having just spent 40 minutes practising walking. It took me nearly 15 clicks before I could take 3 steps away from her without her trying to follow me. After that we worked on me going from side to side. Also difficult, as she wanted to turn to face me when I got even with her hip in either direction.

The neat thing there was that I lured her over onto her side and she very easily offered me a relax. I got a photo but it's on another camera so I don't have it yet.

Finally we did a looooooong restrained recall. My little brown rocket! Then we walked on a lovely Lazy Leash back to the car and came home.

5 months 9 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-20T13:17:04-06:00

An ideal world would have a bank of 15 dog training experts watching video of my every move, and another 15 watching the dog's videos. Something that I hadn't noticed when it was happening - one of those subliminal annoyances that hasn't quite made it to the brain's surface yet - is that when I was approaching Syn in her crate to let her out, she was "sliming". By that I mean giving minor appeasing signals - rolling on one hip, wagging her tail sideways, throwing her head gently against the side of the crate - nothing as blatant as rolling belly-up, but now I think it was pretty blatant. Since The Day Of The Dance, when I approach the crate, she's sitting up confidently with a big smile, waiting to get and say hello.

All day she was cheery, attentive, cooperative and bold.

5 months 8 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-19T20:25:11-06:00

I wasn't happy with my solution to Syn's behaviour yesterday. I woke up with a Plan. The pup is actively avoiding coming to me. I'm certainly not helping by continuing to expect her to come to me and then threatening her (however mildly) when she doesn't. I have no idea why she's behaving like this, but I don't really need to know, I need to deal with the behaviour.

One way to deal with it would be to go back to the very beginning and retrain her to come, starting with clicking for looking in my direction. Hmm. Might come to that, but I have another idea.

A theory I have, that I've been working under for more than 20 years, concerns fear periods. Most, if not all, pups have fear periods. The "normal" times for these to show up are 1 month, 2 months, 4 months, 8 months, 16 months - and once in a while 32 months, give or take a few weeks or months. In my experience, working breeds like Giant Schnauzers are particularly prone to big deal fear periods.

So here's my theory. A 4-week-old pup starts feeling big. "I can go in the kitchen!" she tells herself. "I'm big, I'm bold, who does that human think she is, keeping me in this stupid whelping box? I am by golly gonna climb out of here and go in the kitchen! I can handle it!"

Now if you're lucky, at that moment you happen to come by and gaze fondly into the whelping box at the puppies and Miss Thing looks up, waaayyyy up, and thinks to herself "Wow, she's big! Bigger than me! She must be the Queen Of The Kitchen!" and that's the end of the 4-week fear period.

If you're not lucky, Miss Thing climbs out of the whelping box, toddles into the kitchen, looks around and thinks "Holy cow, kitchens are BIG! I had NO idea! I can't handle kitchens! I'm just little!" and this realization kicks in the fear period. Not only that, but she can't count on you because she's already convinced herself that she's bigger than you, so since SHE can't handle the kitchen, obviously YOU can't either.

So she's going to be afraid for a few hours, a few days, or, in the case of Giant Schnauzers, a few weeks or even months, until she starts to respect your ability to handle the universe again.

One way to convince a dog that you can handle the universe is to put the dog in Leading The Dance. When I came up with this (probably anthropomorphic) theory, I started putting any Giant showing any signs of incipient fear periods into the the Dance, and I dropped the length of those fear periods from our standard 4 or 5 weeks to 4 or 5 days.

So this morning I asked Syn one more time if she'd come to me and when she declined, I put her on leash, attached the leash to my ankle, and just went about my business for the day, ignoring her completely. About 11 AM, I asked her to come to me. She started left, felt the leash, started right, felt it again, and then crept to me. I told her what a great job she did and then went back to ignoring her again. Asked her again at 2, and she came brightly and cheerfully to me, making eye contact and wagging her tail. I praised her again, and ignored her again for another hour. After that I asked her every hour or so, and each time she came cheerfully. At 6 I took the leash off and she's been cheerful, cute, and attentive for the last 3 hours. If she shows any signs of uncertainty later, I'll put her back on the umbilical cord for another day.

An added advantage is that she's figuring out how to keep from getting her leash tangled or stepping on it.

5 months 7 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-18T20:19:26-06:00

A very strange day today. If I ever think teenagers don't have a rough time of it, I can remember today.

First we went to class and had a grand time. She Lazy Leashed brilliantly past toys and a dog dish with food in it. She learned to run through a weave pole chute. She ran tunnels from my left side, right side, 6 feet back, and 5 feet to either side. She played the solo Come Game over a jump. She retrieved a toy several times. She thought about waiting her turn. And big surprise - the Cairn puppy and Wire Dachshund that have terrorized her from the first day of puppy class looked CUTE today. FUN. She pawed at them and had a game of Dodge Dog with the Cairn. Then she wanted to approach every dog that was there. Who ARE you, and what have you done with my puppy?

When we got home, she suddenly decided that I was scary when I was standing up. She couldn't come to me. She ducked and looked for a way out and walked casually away. What?

Her crate behaviours have been terrific lately. She runs in her crate at the vaguest hint that I might be asking her to. I asked her to get in her crate, and she started toward it, but stopped immediately, looked at it, looked at me, backed up three steps and headed into the dog room. I called her, and got nothing.

I ignored her and went about my business. Later I asked her to come to me, and again got the start, the hesitation, the stare, backing up, and leaving. Okay.

Several times I made invitational gestures but without actually asking her to come. ANY suggestion that I might want her got the same reaction.

Without thinking about it too much, I invited again. Then I sat down, and she hesitantly came to me. I praised her and petted her, then got up and walked away. Repeated it. And again, and again.

Then I didn't sit down, and she walked away. I walked after her. Without doing anything more aggressive than walking calmly and slowly after her, I trapped her beside my desk. I stopped 3 feet from her and invited her again. She looked for a way out but, finding none, she came, creeping and leaking. I petted her and praised her, rubbing her muzzle and doing her favourite rubs, then I straightened up and walked away.

I repeated it a few minutes later, and this time she didn't leak when she approached me.

The next time she didn't creep, and then she was OK - until I backed into the bathroom, when she ducked and walked away. I followed her and when I could see her, I stopped and invited her, and she came, then I backed toward the bathroom again. It took 3 restarts, but we finally made it into the bathroom, where we had a little party. As we walked out of the bathroom, she turned back and scolded me.

An hour later, I went into the bathroom and called her, and she galloping in as usual, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Hormones? Full moon? I have no idea. Seems to be over, but I'm watching for it now.

5 months 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-17T20:18:31-06:00

Every year we take some of our llamas and show them off in a booth at a very large farm show. We're the only livestock exhibit there - all the rest are $300,000 tractors, $30,000 mowers, bulldozers that could drive over your car without noticing. We show off llama tricks, give out llama kisses, spin fibre, talk about driving llamas and backpacking with llamas, what to feed them, how to cut nails and shear. It's three very long days, preceded by 5 very long days of preparation and grooming and followed by 4 days of washing and folding and repacking. Not a lot of time for dogs. Or eating, sleeping, or anything else.

This year, being the last year we're going to do this, we decided to take the Training Levels books in our booth along with the llamas, and the dogs to advertise the books.

I had no idea how Syn would behave. I expected she'd be very upset to be in a crate when I was over talking to a llama, but we had 3 people manning the booth and I hoped someone would be able to toss her a treat whenever she was behaving and she'd get better as she went along. Also I wanted to take some time to introduce her a LOT of strangers and work on having her control herself around them.

Stitch came the first day. Stitch lay on a llama-fibre blanket on a table with some books, and Syn stayed in a wire-crate-and-ex-pen setup most of the time. Once in a while she came out and we worked on eye contact, which was excellent unless a toddler was nearby. At first she thought toddlers might be evil ninjas and barked at them (real barking, rather than the grrumble-talk she does to comment on just about everything), but I started clicking and tossing a treat at her when she saw one, and before she had a chance to get the bark out. By the end of the day she was watching them come and even talking to them when they stuck their fingers through the bars of her crate or expen (yes, I was careful).

The entire day, she was fanTAStic in the crate and pen. She had an open door between the two. She could lie on a fluffy dogbed in the crate, or on a blanket in the pen back in private. She spent most of the day in the crate watching the people walk by. I walked in and out of her sight on a regular basis and she wasn't bothered. Maybe we'll survive her first dog shows next month after all!

Stitch left for an agility trial with a friend the next morning, and Syn went to the farm show alone. She spent the morning in the crate and pen so I could be sure that she wasn't terrific the day before just because Stitch was there. Nope, she was just terrific. After lunch, I thought I'd try her on the table and see if maybe I could get a few steps away from the table with her on it.

Well duh. Tables are nothing but higher mats and/or crates with no bars. At first she perched like a vulture, waiting for her click:

Her panting is an indication of how hard she's working at her mat behaviour. She was doing so well, I started shaping a relax. She remembered relax and got right into the spirit

though she's still watching, watching, waiting for the click. On my side, check. Tail not wagging, check. Paws quiet, check. Head down, check. C'mon, c'mon, click already. As the time between clicks grew longer and longer, she eventually gave up. She spent four or five hours on that table, interspersed with water, pee, and cuddle breaks, while I walked around the booth talking to people, working the llamas, scooping poop, spinning, etc.

When people came to pet her, she'd roll up onto her elbows, sometimes even stand up to say hello, but her greetings were polite. She didn't like more than 4 people at a time - didn't try to get away or seem too upset, but she'd get a disgruntled look on her face and examine the table to see if it had perhaps gotten bigger so she could move away a bit. At that point (usually BEFORE that point), I'd step in and give her a few treats and she'd settle right down.

I thought she'd be exhausted, but she came home and wrestled with everybody.

The third day it rained. It didn't rain, it POURED. Fortunately our booth is under a big cement ledge, so we were sort of dry, but there was NOBODY at the show. I got out a dumbbell and started working with it. Syn really got into it - possibly aided by the whole feel-good-because-I'm-damp thing. First we did some straight holds together. Excellent. Then I started dropping the db on the ground. Excellent. Finally I started tossing it away from us a bit, and she really got excited. She was having a wonderful time retrieving that dumbbell - and it was real retrieving, with a nice hold. Sometimes I asked her to sit when she brought it to me and she did. Sometimes I just held it and didn't cue a release, so we held it together for a few seconds. Excellent. Excuse the quality of the photos, it was DARK and WET and my phone is many generations old.

That shiny stuff in the background is water. You can see I was getting a good 8 to 10 feet distance on my throws,

and lovely happy returns. Sometimes the dumbbell bounced out into the rain, and she bravely went and got it anyway.

I've always felt closer to a dog after she learns to retrieve, and I think maybe I'm not just imagining that. When we got home this evening (and had a swim and a blow dry to warm up), she started bringing me toys to play with her with - something she rarely does. Once I tossed the toy behind the couch. She spent a great deal of time trying to get it out, but couldn't quite reach it. Finally she turned and grrumbled at me, looking back over her shoulder to where she'd been trying to get the toy. I got up, and she led me to it. I got it for her and she growled fiercely and tossed it around. She came and got me! Yes!

5 months 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-12T17:34:06-06:00

We spent lunch on retrieving. We started near where we left off last time - I held a stick that she'd brought in, and tried to keep my toes curled around her back end so she couldn't back up. Got a dozen clicks in for not pulling. Then I started holding the stick very, very lightly and that helped the most - with nothing to pull against, she soon stopped pulling (hello, duh).

That went so well, I held the stick up over her head, over here, over there, and down low to the ground. She was diving for it almost before she'd swallowed the previous treat. (I don't want to give her too many right now, as she can't chew them. If she swallows an entire meal of kibble, she'll throw them up again an hour later. When I'm feeding her, I either soak the kibble for an hour or so, or grind it up with the blender and put water in it. So very short sessions for now.)

Then I dropped it, and she picked it up. THAT was VERY difficult. Not the picking up part, but the delivery. While her eyes clearly wanted to hand the stick to me, her muzzle kept jerking backwards, and her legs kept backing away from me. Extremely funny. Then she lifted one front paw and started PUSHING the stick towards me. I could hardly see I was laughing so hard.

She pushed the stick right out of her mouth, and that seemed to help. When it hit the ground, she grabbed it up and handed it to me really fast - before her muzzle and back end could take her away from me again. Another five times, and she was able to pick it up calmly and hand it to me.

I pushed my luck - I started tossing the stick about 3 feet away from me. She went to it, picked it up, brought it, and held it until I took it. Wow!

I think the most exciting part of this session was her understanding of the task. She hasn't quite got the hang of picking up a stick at the balance point (most of the time). She usually picks it up on one end (must find my dumbbells). If one end hits the ground or against a chair and she drops it, or she spots a lost kibble on the floor, she goes immediately back to the job. Sometimes she forgets at the moment, comes to me, looks at me looking at the stick, turns to look at it, and then goes and gets it.

This is a chief cause of failure at the beginning levels of water trials. Young dogs know how to FETCH - to chase something and bring it back - but when they bring a bumper out of the water, they'll naturally drop it and shake. That's fine, IF they pick it up again and keep bringing it. What usually happens with dogs who know how to fetch but not retrieve, though, is that as soon as they've dropped it, it isn't trying to escape any more so it's no longer interesting, and they go off to do something else. Syn has a really good start on not getting into that situation.

5 months

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-11T12:11:11-06:00

5 months, a big milestone, if for no other reasons than that we start thinking of her in months rather than weeks, and that makes her seem... more grown up than baby. Not that she's in any way grown up! She still has only tooth stubs, her puppy coat is long and scraggly-looking, she can't see Stitch or any human without trying to fly.

The elusive Canadian Flying Squirrel

Yep, she's a teenager. "WHO PUT THE EMPTY MILK BOTTLE BACK IN THE FRIDGE?" "I did. Did you buy CocoPuffs when you were out?"

We had a grand day today. Dog class in the morning. We started with pickup sticks - PVC pipes laid haphazardly across each other to help the dogs learn where their hind ends are. Apparently she has a pretty good idea where all her feet are, she had no trouble with this. Then a contact trainer - a narrow board up, then a wide board down (or vice versa). First try she ripped up the wide board and leaped off toward the target lid from there. Ah, but there are good helpers who step on target lids when you don't do it right, sorry chickie. Next try I held her on a shorter leash and she did it right. Next time I let her go and she leaped off again (this is a very low obstacle, by the way). Next time she started before I asked her to and she checked herself on the leash and then went over at a nice trot, then did a Zen at the end on the target. OK, go ahead! Next time over I let her go and she raced it correctly and got her treat. Yay! We've also been working on not letting her go over/across obstacles until she's focused on the target at the end and she's really got it. I'm adding the cue Look! She got some admiring comments on her focus.

Then we moved on to tricks. I took her figure-8 leg weaving, which she does very fast and smoothly, and, sitting on a stool, straightened my legs and pointed my toes up with my heels on the ground so she went under-left, over-left, under-right, over-right, so with 3 extra treats the first time, we added crawling and jumping to the trick.

Next area was working on swing finishes by putting the dogs' front paws up on a stool and getting the back paws to move in a circle around the stool. Now, this is a marvelous method of teaching the swing finish, and it's how I taught Stitch to do her right swing, BUT. But Syn already knew how to do a swing finish from Communication Level 2. Then when I tried to walk around her she thought I wanted a swing and wouldn't sit still, so I had to explain very carefully that she could swing when I asked her to and sit still while I walked around her. She's JUST figuring that out. So we lured her front paws up on the stool. Fine. Then I started moving off to my right to lure her into turning, and she proudly stood still, swinging her head to demonstrate that she would be happy to stay where she was and watch me walk up on her right after walking around her. Dear little Tat! So we didn't do the stool exercise any more but spent our time working on a go-behind finish with a hand lure. I'm not sure Syn's brain couldn't have handled move-no, don't move- wait, wait, I really meant move... but for sure mine couldn't.

Later in the day we went for a run. I will need to eventually specifically teach her to stay away from the tires of (and out from in front of) the Gator, but for now I'm relying on Stitch to keep her occupied at a safe distance. She had a good run and we ended up at the dugout where Stitch chased some bumpers into the water and then got really insane, being wet and having Syn nipping at her. They ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. In there somewhere Stitch ran out the still-submerged dock and dived off, and Syn followed her. Syn, however, didn't really know what she was walking on, since she couldn't see it, and she stepped her front feet off, leaving her head and front end under water and her back end still on the dock. She managed to get herself back up with no damage to body or enthusiasm, and she came home sopping wet without ever actually having gone far enough into the water to swim. In a couple of weeks when it's warmer, I'll go in with her.

She was more than happy to ride home in the Gator, even though Stitch was still swooping joyfully around us.

19 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-09T14:47:35-06:00

We have all developed an unfortunate behaviour. I sit in my recliner with my laptop on my chest (because I can't see the screen if it's further away than that) and the dogs jump on my lap and we all have a cozy afternoon.

That's what happens when ONE dog jumps up, or even when two tired dogs jump up, but when one youngish veteran and one 19-weeks-5-days flying squirrel jumps up, they end up having wrestling matches on my lap. Which is OK, but when they brought in the scantily-clad sign holders and the referees, I decided to draw the line.

I worked on the computer for 3 hours this morning, and got 7 jump-ups in the first hour, 3 in the second hour, and one cute little nose over the arm to see what I was doing in the third hour. All I did to get this change was to tell them to get off immediately when they got up. I'm going to keep this up for a couple of days and then start letting them know that they can come up with an engraved invitation only. Next year we can go back to anytime-they-want-to-as-long-as-there-are-no-sign-babes-or-referees.

For supper Syn and I went back to the book. I know we finished Level 1, but I'm not sure how far we got in Level 2, so we started at sort of random in the middle, with Target. Touch a wooden object, check. Touch a plastic object, check. Touch a metal object, check. We have definitely completed these before. Touch up and down and all over town, check. Touch a Post-It note on vertical surfaces, check.

Oops, close a cabinet door. Haven't done that. I don't have a cabinet door (that doesn't have stinky garbage behind it) so we work on a drawer in the kitchen instead. I put a Post-It note on the drawer. She couldn't find it. I got her touching my hand and led her over to the note (I would have put the note in my hand but she wants to retrieve it - dang, eh? - so I had to tape it solidly to the drawer). Once she saw it, she was all for hitting it. The drawer was a good one for training because if she got it moving fast enough it closed the lasts inch or two on its own, with a satisfying little thunk. We finished with her closing it about 8 inches with two clicks for the 8 inches and another treat for the thunk.

And it's not part of the behaviour, but by golly she wanted to retrieve the drawer. How cool is that?

Then we moved on to Go To Mat. I put my coat on the floor about 5 feet away. Yep, we've definitely done this behaviour all the way through as well, except for Step 4 (add a distraction) and Step 5 (start doing stuff while she's on the mat). Well, wasn't that fun? Turns out she's fine with Stitch in the room, or my husband, or toys, or the door open - but if my treat hand is moving, she can't do anything but stare at me. Excellent! An easy distraction to arrange and work on! After 20 treats she was only hesitating for an instant (engage brain, mom said something. What did she say? Oh, yeah, go to mat!) before heading for the coat.

Step 5 was harder. We've been working really hard on her heeling (bounce-walk-walk-bouncebounce-walk-bounce) to the cue of SQUIRREL! and she thinks that if I'm walking around, she ought to be bopping along with me. I had to start just waving my arms around a bit, and even that was tough. After a few minutes, though, she was able to stay on the coat while I walked around the coffee table and did pretend jumping jacks.

We finished up with a few conformation stacks on the floor. Fun session.

19 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-08T13:08:52-06:00

What a pleasure she is. Sometimes.

Once a week I grind a dog's nails and do whatever grooming is prudent or necessary, so each dog gets done once every two weeks. Today was Syn's turn.

I took her breakfast to the dog room and sat down at the grooming table. She came over and put her paws up on the table so I could boost her up. Kibble for that. She turned around and sat facing me. I picked up one front paw and did the nails. Kibble for that. Did the other front paw. Kibble for that.

I asked her to lie down, then lured her over onto her side and waited for her head to go down. Kibble for that. Did one back paw (yes, kibble), and then the other (kibble). Six pieces of kibble and a very sweet nail grooming session. Life is good.

Then I took her muzzle in my hand (kibble? kibble? kibble? Syn, no. Oh, OK). She rested her chin lightly in my hand and I did a little trimming of her bangs so she could see where she was going. Kibble for that.

Lured her into a stand and did some work on a conformation stack, luring her back and forth and placing her back feet once in a while. When she moved a foot, I pulled the bait away for a second, replaced the foot, and then continued.

We finished the session (and breakfast) working on relaxing on the table. Very funny. She has a hard time holding still because she wants to paw at the table to remind me that she's "relaxing". I put my palm on the bottom of one front foot and she visibly relaxed. I didn't push it, we haven't worked on it much, but got a good solid 5 seconds.

When I put her down she got the rips again while Stitch and I just watched in awe. Skidding around corners, crashing into things (noticeably my knee), tail down, head up, growling like a semi building up speed through the gears. She ripped for maybe 2 minutes, then went to her bed, picked up a squeaky to suck on, and fell asleep. Dear little Tat.

We went to the pool for supper. I don't think I have a lot more to teach her there, but I don't want her to forget that she enjoys swimming. Of course, cold water and waves might be a completely different story but we have a good foundation, anyway.

As she swam around me, I handed her bits of wiener. At one point, I thought I'd start showing her the idea that wieners might appear slightly UNDER the water, so I began holding each piece at the water line instead of above it. No problem, and she was soon blowing bubbles as she reached for the pieces. Then, because she'd been swimming for long enough without a rest, I looped an arm around her and held her beside me. I was thinking about what to do next, and my other hand drifted under the water. To my astonishment, she pulled forward, dove her ENTIRE head under water and took the wiener out of my hand.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a WATER DOG!

I didn't ask her to go that deep again, but we spent the next few minutes with her putting her muzzle and up over her eyes under water, in my arms, and while swimming. Zowie!

19 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-07T23:55:58-06:00

And this morning, I dropped my wallet and Syn nonchalantly picked it up and handed it to me. !

We can't do anything outside because it's raining buckets. I have a llama show to get ready for, I'm a month overdue finishing shearing, the barn isn't clean, my baby llama is 3 days overdue on his 10th Lazy Leash lesson, and we can't do anything. The good news is that Syn has decided she would rather pee outside in the rain than stop halfway out in the back porch.

We worked on retrieve some more, since she was starting to think of it on her own already. First I worked on orienting her to the crochet rag, and then lowering her field of vision from rag-in-hand to rag-on-rug. That went fairly well, though once in a while she forgot and went back to trying out sitting and downing and admiring my treat hand.

I told you it was raining here.

Her return-to-my-hand-without-dropping-it rate was about 80%

She seemed to me to be thinking an awful lot about my treat hand, so we did a little hand Zen to remind her, and then tried some floor Zen. That went well so I went back to retrieving the rag - with the Zen treat on the floor.

Boy howdy, THAT was tough! At first she couldn't move, not going for the treat - her floor Zen is excellent - but mesmerized by its siren call. I had to pick the rag up and put it right in front of her face before she could open her mouth the first time without risking the treat jumping in.

As she got better and better at being able to breathe and pick up the rag and resist the kibble all at the same time, I put the rag closer and closer to the kibble. This was about as close as she got, and you can see that she's left her right front paw behind to anchor her in case the kibble tries to drag her over.

Then she lost her nerve. Too much struggling to keep out of that black kibble-hole. She went back to doing what she knows - when in doubt, Zen is easiest if you just stay away from the whole area.

Sometimes the better part of valour is just not playing. Too much thinking going on here. After this attempt, I picked up the floor kibble and we just practised holding the rag together for a while. She was still eager to play retrieving with me, as long as we didn't have to think about that evil kibble on the floor. Since I spent several weeks rewarding her for any tiny tug on a toy or her leash (when I offered it to her), and we built up to some pretty hefty tug wars, she thinks that if we're both holding it, she should be pulling it away from me. Which is a pretty small glitch, considering how far she's come in the last couple of days. I got my wallet again and worked with that. She can't really hold it because it'll slide right out of her mouth (I mentioned no teeth before), but it didn't feel like something she should try to tug on either, so we got some nice steady two-person holds.

19 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-07T01:06:03-06:00

I'm beginning to feel like one of those madly grinning bobble-head dolls - everything is FINE, isn't this FUN, aren't we having a good TIME!

Well, sorry, but I AM having a good time.

I didn't feel like doing anything active today. so Syn and I worked one meal on retrieving. Since her mouth is currently made up of 6 barely-visible upper incisors, one lonely bottom baby canine and a lot of swelling, I didn't ask her to hold anything hard. I have a bit of crocheting that I decided wasn't going well, but it's made of soft smooth fluffy yarn. Just the thing.

She's got a good hold, with 15 seconds of duration, and we've done some work on tugging, so I went with the final stage - picking something up off the floor and handing it to me.

We started with some touches with the rag in my hand, then moved quickly to having her hold it with me. Then I put it on the floor and shaped her to target it with her muzzle. After three targets, I held the click and she reliably started putting her mouth on it, then lifting it. That went well, but when I reached for it with my left hand, she dropped it and lunged for my hand.

Right. She thinks I'm handing her the treat. So we worked ten kibbles on letting me touch her collar without her licking/mouthing/chewing on my left hand, then petting her head, then lifting her feet. Finally we went back to picking up the rag and she let me reach my left hand toward it (kibble in my right hand) without dropping it, and two clicks later she was handing it to me.

She had several minor problems that we'll work through. One was that she's not used to being shaped to go to something at floor level. Go under a chair, sure. Around a suitcase, sure. Up on a dogbed, yes. But not something on the floor. She kept forgetting where it was and what we were supposed to be doing with it. She'd try lying down, rolling her back end left and right, looking this way and that. At one point she tried to pick up the coffee table - not a problem, of course, since she has no teeth right now she can't do any damage! Finally it clicked and she began remembering what we were doing and looking immediately for the rag after she got her treat for the previous retrieve.

The other problem was that her body occasionally thought we might be working on tug, so as she approached me she would take a funny little half-step backwards as I reached for the rag. Then she'd startle and come forward again - "Oops, darn, that's not what she wants!" Cute.

Otherwise, excellent session.

19 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-04T21:01:10-06:00

Excellent class this morning. It's called K9 Fun 101, and it is. In the first 15 minutes, we started doing collapsed tunnels - uncollapsed in the beginning, of course, and by the end of the session Syn was diving through with it closed. Only trouble was she couldn't turn around and run through it backwards like she did last week with the open tunnel. Bummer.

Second session she was "jumping" through a tire. She's pretty much decided that going through anything will result in getting a treat on a target plate. She's doing an excellent job (well, for a baby) of focusing on the obstacle to let me know she's heading for it, not even thinking about ways to get around it instead of through, and racing through at top speed - and, especially important, refocusing on me once she's had the treat. In fact, once while I was telling her what a great job she did as she approached the target, she swerved off and came to me instead.

Third session we worked on Zen (um, yeah, we can do that), hand touches (um, yeah, we can do that), and then backing up. We haven't done a ton of backing up, but she figured it out fast when I put a treat in her face and then used it to pull her nose down along her chin toward her throat (that sounds disgusting). Then something really exciting. They put out barriers. The idea was to stand with the dog standing beside the barrier on my left side, and then use the lure we'd just taught to get her to back up in heel position. While I was waiting for a barrier, I did what I've done with adult dogs who already have a really good swing finish (you may recall that Syn has a really good half-trained swing finish). I stood with her in heel position, turned towards her slightly, cued the swing and took half a step backwards at the same time AND SHE BACKED UP WITH ME. It was totally sweet. And she did it again and again. At one point, I took two big steps backwards and she stayed with me. GOOD PUPPY!

Fourth session we did really fast and excited comefores. Also excellent. She is SO much fun.

When we were done, I spent 5 kibbles working up to a 15 foot drop on recall, and got it five or six times. Dang. Training dogs is tough, tough, tough.

For supper, we went swimming again. This time I had trouble keeping her on her bench long enough to get to the other side to call her into the water. I finally started telling her to stay. She really wanted to get in the water. She swam off and on for about 10 minutes (lots of rest breaks), chasing my hands to touch and learning not to climb on me (in Portuguese Water Dog circles, it is considered bad form for the dog to stand on your head during the Swim With Handler exercises). It wasn't difficult to teach her since she wasn't trying to use me to get out of the water, she just thought it would be fun if we both swam in the same 8 inches of water. I used my target hand to move her out. At the end of the session, I took her life jacket off and let her swim once without it. She didn't seem to notice.

I think I wore her out for once. I think she wore me out too.

18 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-02T14:03:13-06:00

I think we're over our little crate boggle. This morning I asked her to Hit The Rack and she dived for the crate... except I had moved the crate, so she ended up perched on the chair I had replaced the crate with. Fresh llama hair in the bag, just came in from the barn.

When I ignored her, she hesitated for a moment, then looked frantically around, found the crate, and made another dash for it. Managed to hit it this time!

This evening we did a little work on the solo Come Game - this is a special favourite of ours. She likes it because it's fast and active and she gets to skid and spin her tires and bang into things. I like it because I get to practise her recall, which elicits gasps from all who see it, and because when I ask her to come (rather than saying SYNSYN!), she plunks her little bottom down somewhere in the vicinity of front position, grabbing my eyes with hers, wagging her tail and stomping her feet.

While we were doing that I realized that, in the kitchen/living room, we had much more room than we usually do when playing this, so I started clicking her for coming within 15 feet of me, then tossing the treat back over her head (see the video in the Movie Album). Within 10 clicks, I got a sweet drop on recall with her 15 feet away from me. This being the exercise that Stitch failed in her last obedience trial...

Then a few more Comes so she doesn't get the idea that I always want her to stop and lie down 15 feet away from me, and then five kibbles worth of Heeling - I haven't been using a cue yet, just walking along in a rather excited manner with her bopping and bouncing beside me. And just out of the blue I started using the cue "Squirrel!" I think I like it. Particularly if she's going to build bouncing into her definition of the job.

And we finished off with some stacking on the grooming table. Sweet.

18 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-06-01T10:33:51-06:00

One of the first things you have to do to start training is set yourself up for success - establish your setting factors. Make sure everything is in place that you'll need to get the behaviour you want.

So this morning I decided to work on Go To Mat, where Syn would start to realize that she has to stay out of the way when I'm trying to work with Stitch. This was precipitated last night when I was trying to do some heeling with Stitch and the Flying Squirrel kept hurling herself between us a foot off the ground.

Went into the training room. I'd left Syn's soft crate on the floor where I wanted to work, so I picked it up and put it on a nearby chair (this is the crate from 16-weeks-5-days that has the lid that zips open - you can also see a picture of Syn doing her Squirrel routine at 17-weeks).

Put her pillow from the other day on the floor and tied her leash to the heavy coffee table so she could get on the pillow but not get to Stitch and me. Stitch and I went about 15 feet away and started working.

Well! Yapyap! Jump around! Fuss and fume! After a minute I took pity on her and suggested that she Hit The Rack (our go to mat cue). "Oh!" she says, slapping herself on the forehead, looks around - AND TRIES TO DIVE INTO THE CRATE WHICH IS SITTING ON THE CHAIR nearby. Crate topples gently off the chair, trapping her inside. Syn bucks and kicks momentarily and gets the crate off herself, then spends several minutes pacing back and forth reading the riot act to me, the crate, Stitch and the world in general.

Having been thoroughly told off, I screw my head back on, pick up the pillow, and put the crate in its place. And for some reason Syn doesn't want to go in it. Sigh. A single kibble tossed in changes her mind, and we proceed from there. We get up to about 25 seconds of me working Stitch while Syn lies down in the crate (with the door open).

As I said in one of Stitch's early blog posts - stick with me, guys, I'm a professional...

And in the afternoon we tried the same game again, but without tying her to the coffee table. Brilliant. I started by asking her once to Hit The Rack. She did, and I tossed a kibble in the crate. Once in a while she would come out to see if she could join in the action (especially when I called Stitch - apparently Stitch Come sounds EXACTLY like Syn Come, even though This Is For Stitch sounds NOTHING like This Is For Syn), but when she did I started rapid-firing treats into Stitch. Each time, Syn startled and booted it for her crate. More kibble. Good pup - and good lesson. Amazing self-control.

We finished by putting Stitch on a mat and doing some solo comes with Syn. She was so eager to work she was quivering. And I realize that Syn has found her avatar. I have flags for each dog to hang on our tent when we're at events. Stitch has Stitch (from the movie Lilo And Stitch), Fish (another Portie) has a kingfisher (that's his real name)(why don't we call him King instead of Fish? Because King is a boring name for a Portie, that's why. And Fish isn't), Hawkins (the Giant Schnauzer) has a hawk, and Syn has... a flying squirrel, of course. It fits her perfectly. A flying squirrel with an energy drink.

18 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-31T18:41:15-06:00

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.

18 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-30T23:19:21-06:00

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.

18 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-28T23:34:54-06:00

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.

17 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-27T22:09:40-06:00

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.

17 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-26T15:19:12-06:00

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!

17 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-25T17:45:25-06:00

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!

17 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-23T10:47:47-06:00

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.

17 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-22T21:41:21-06:00

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!

17 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-21T12:20:55-06:00

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.

16 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-19T10:58:06-06:00

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).

16 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-18T14:45:31-06:00

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.

16 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-14T19:55:31-06:00

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!

15 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-12T15:51:40-06:00

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.

15 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-11T14:04:51-06:00

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.

15 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-10T18:29:18-06:00

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.

15 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-07T23:10:49-06:00

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.

14 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-06T22:43:43-06:00

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!

14 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-05T20:19:44-06:00

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 .

14 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-03T21:04:47-06:00

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.

14 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-02T22:22:05-06:00

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.

14 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-05-01T12:21:19-06:00

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.

13 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-29T21:02:18-06:00

Hey, this dog training stuff is really cool!

We went on another trip today - 3 hours to my mom & dad's (and their old, noisy Mini Schnauzer), then a hotel, and the rest of the weekend will be spent in her crate in the truck while Stitch and I are at a Rally trial, then another 3-hour drive to my son and daughter-in-law's place to spend a day with my new grandson, then another 3 hours home.

I wasn't looking forward to the Mini Schnauzer because his barking is very scary for a pup. When we arrived, I went in the house for a few minutes until he got bored and wandered off, then I went out and got Syn.

Old Jimmy didn't bark again, and was so exceptionally polite that Syn only spent a couple of minutes under my chair before she started wandering around looking at things in spite of Jimmy being nearby.

Then my mom took them both out in the back yard. Alone, just the 3 of them. At first Syn cried and scratched at the door to come back in the house. When that didn't accomplish anything, she sat on the step and watched mom and Jim wander around the yard. Finally mom started calling PUPPY PUPPY. Well, that looked too much like the Come Game, and Syn is a sucker for the CG, so she raced the whole length of the yard to bounce around mom for a few seconds. Then she realized how far she was from the door-back-to-me, and how close she was to Jim, so she raced back to the step. By then she had the rips, so she raced back and forth four more times, and by then she was OK with Jimmy joining her, so the two of them raced around the yard and had a great time.

I knew it would come, but I'm still thrilled to see it.

If you recall, the first few weeks I took Syn out my front door to pee. I realized today that that really paid off. She now pees every single time we walk out my front door, AND every time I take her out of the car. Excellent!

I'm a happy camper.

13 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-28T17:01:13-06:00

Since we're doing so well on the introduction to Relax, this morning we went through a bunch of tests in Level 2. This is stuff I haven't exactly been working on - per se, but I've been working all around it, and sure enough, each behaviour is supporting other behaviours, just the way it's supposed to! Nice when a plan comes together!

We got a sweet and easy 30-second floor Zen, and 10 seconds of eye contact (though she started out sitting and jumped up at 8 seconds, then back into a sit - she never broke contact). I want that without the jumping up, but for now it was a clear pass. 40' recall, yes.

We started getting her to move away from hand pressure for Handling. That was a new concept, but we worked it just like giving to pressure from the collar, and once she figured out what I wanted, she was pretty good about it.

10 seconds of Down Stay? HA HA HA HA

In the evening we went to the first of another set of puppy classes. There were 2 other puppies, a Maltesy and a Beagly sort. At first they were all afraid of each other. After a few minutes, the Beagly pup started greeting people, and a few minutes after that, Syn started venturing out from under my chair as well.

Then a Finnish Spitz arrived - 7 months old, 30 (?) pounds - because he'd missed the first session of the previous set of classes. He was completely at home, a nice dog, but overpowering for Syn, who got up the courage to crinkle her nose and then bark/snap/yipe at him to tell him to get away from her. He responded by moving off but forgot himself frequently and came back.

I ignored her when she was doing this, lured her out in front of me with a hand target, and then clicked her for sitting, for downing, for looking at him, for doing her figure 8 trick. She was perfectly willing to do all these things, but retreated under the chair and snarked again when he came to close.

After a while I decided she was getting to the point of over-reacting, so I started tapping her on the head to distract her before she had a chance to curl her lip at him, then rewarding her for remaining calm. Soon I was doing "THIS is for the Fink, THIS is for Syn" with them.

She ALMOST got comfortable with the other two pups. She went over a couple of times to investigate the Maltesy pup, who was lying down under her dad's chair (growled at the Fink a couple of times). The Beagly pup was a little too confident for Syn, but I think next week she'll like him a lot.

It isn't often one gets the chance to seriously affect a dog's future personality twice in one week. Last week Syn could easily have been taught to be spooky, and this week she could just as easily have been taught to be "aggressive". By remaining calm, building her confidence, letting her express her concerns, and rewarding her for acceptable behaviour, I hope I've avoided both paths.

13 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-27T22:14:31-06:00

Shaping Syn to lie down on her side worked - sort of. It's a pretty quiet behaviour for a young active pup. She understands right away that she needs to roll her hips, and it only took five or six clicks to get her off her elbow as well. Getting her head down - that's another story.

She almost understood what I wanted. At one point she rolled up onto both elbows and put her head down between her front paws. That's not what I was looking for, but I clicked it anyway. It didn't help, she didn't repeat it. Finally I shaped her off one elbow and started luring her head down from there, which was working pretty well until...

She jumped up to think about what we were doing, then downed, then turned her head to her left instead of her right. I clicked that, and she immediately rolled right down onto her right side. Usually when a dog is shaped to do a behaviour one way, that's the way she'll do it forever, but Syn, I guess, figured if it was correct to roll onto her left side, she might as well try rolling onto her right side. Anyway, I clicked it, and three clicks later she stared putting her head down. I was so surprised I forgot to click, and she HELD her head down until I got around to it. What a strange, awesome little person.

But she's not allowed to lick my face until next Christmas.

We got a nice clean 10 seconds of eye contact today. It wasn't cold, it took her four clicks to get up to 10 seconds, but it was nice when we got it, and it says my work on curbing the dancing and singing is working nicely.

And we've worked our way up to a sort-of 3-second hold on a Chuck-It handle. She gives me 2.9 seconds, lets go, then grabs it again for another 2 seconds. Consistently. Tomorrow I'll remember Chutes and Ladders and not just watch her do this: one, two, threeletgo, one, two, click.

When she's holding, though, her mouth is nice and quiet.

She did the figure-8 trick three times in a row this evening with just a voice cue.

13 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-26T10:51:46-06:00

Nice to know I've learned something in the 6 years since Stitch was a puppy.

Syn came in from the yard this morning joyously tossing something, chasing it, tossing it again. She was having a WONderful time. A niggle of concern began somewhere in my throat, so I put on my glasses. Yep. Fur. With long stringy unfurry bits.

The back half of a mouse.

Here's the part where I know I learned something. I quietly got up, got a fistful of kibble and a Kleenex. I called Syn over and, as she was coming, I dropped the kibble on the floor behind me. She spit out the mouse and was gobbling frantically as I went to pick up the remains. She finished her kibble before I was finished my job, but I QUIETLY and CALMLY and REASONABLY said "no" (our Zen cue), and she immediately went back to see if she had maybe missed a kibble.

Mission accomplished.

And... oh look, she found the front half. Isn't that PRESHUS!

So I cleaned that up too, and then watched as she went back to her toybox/dogbed and searched it with all the moves of someone who had just misplaced her cellphone. Dang, I just had it in my HAND! Where could I have left it?

Guess who won't be licking my face anytime in the near future.

We had some visitors last night. I'm not sure if she was going to do her submissive leaking thing or not - she approached the front hall in an upright manner, not slinking, not looking like she was going to roll over, and not in any way working on a more aggressive grumble (which seems to come before a leak when confronted with strangers - I'm big, y'know, I'm tough, you better be careful... eek, don't hurt me, please, I'm just little). Nevertheless, just as she approached them, I "dropped" a couple of kibbles on the floor behind her. By the time she'd cleaned them up, the strangers were just people, and people are fun.

Eye contact is coming along nicely since I've been concentrating on getting rid of the dance moves. She extrapolated from the leg-chute I was using the other day into thinking that I'd like her sitting as close as possible to me when she gives me contact - well, yeah, that's wonderful!

The figure-8-through-my-legs trick is almost ready to be presented (new puppy class tomorrow night. On the off chance that she doesn't freak out at the new puppies, figure 8 is one of the things I can ask her to do to convince her she's got a handle on the situation). She just needs a hand target to get started now, but she can finish it on her own.

I almost bought her a beach ball the other day. She has a huge tennis ball that she pushes around, but needs something bigger to practise for treiball. In case we ever get a chance to play treiball.

She immediately recognises the side-to-side version of the Come Game, drops her butt and starts ripping back and forth. Usually I call her with an "emergency" call (SYNSYN!) Once in a while I call her with a "real" cue (Syn, Come) and she comes, sits, and gives me eye contact. This game is a headslapper. Why didn't I ever think of this before?

For Relax, she's not going over on her side voluntarily yet, but last night I was able to lure her onto her side on the couch and get her head down as well. Once she'd been rewarded for that position 8 times, she was able to hold the position for 2 seconds while I moved the treat away from her nose and back to it.

That's it for luring. I'm going to try shaping it next.

13 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-25T10:38:27-06:00

Syn is turning into a young dog before my eyes. Her legs are growing an inch a day and she has paws that would do justice to a St Bernard.

She's also getting smarter - and dumber - and easier to live with - and harder. For the moment (before she starts seriously teething) I can afford to leave her out of my sight long enough to brush my teeth. She goes into her crate and sleeps through the night without fussing. She puts paws up on the car bumper to be lifted into her car crate. She rides so well in the car that I've occasionally forgotten she was there. She walks politely on a Lazy Leash. She can entertain herself long enough for me to do the dishes or get some computer work done. She can find the dog door to get outside from anywhere in the house. She rides around the yard (firmly seatbelted in) on the front seat of the Gator with her nose pushed forward in the classic dog-with-her-head-out-the-car-window pose.

On the other hand, she goes outside to pee and sees a feral cat - then screeches as if she's amputated a paw and comes running back into the house. By the time she gets to me she's feeling better enough to scold me for allowing the cat in the yard.

She is eating twigs regularly and then occasionally throwing them up - on my bed.

Without Stitch to exercise her, she gets the rips fairly often, and then she bites too hard. But not much.

To go with the curly body language I was talking about earlier, she's started submissive urination, so we're studiously ignoring her when she starts to "slime". The only way to get attention or get your crate opened is to stand on your own four paws. Upside down or curly doesn't do it.

For now, I've solved the problem of what to train per meal by working on these four things.

I've been working very hard on getting eye contact back and she's doing very well. We start every session with eye contact. I'm paying attention to her whining, her paw stamping, her lying down, and her scooting backwards. All these things were helped by me putting my legs out to either side to form a chute in front of me when I'm sitting down, so she has to come into the chute to do the job. The chute seems to calm her a bit and reduce the dancing, so now she's being rewarded for specifically making eye contact and doing NOTHING else. We're up to a pretty solid 6 seconds.

We're playing a combination exercise-and-Come-and-contact game. I sit in the middle of the room, toss a treat over THERE, she runs to get it, I call SYNSYN, which I'm going to use for come-a-runnin'. As she approaches, I click and toss a treat in the other direction, repeat ad nauseam. This way she gets practise in an emergency sort of recall, and exercise in that she's running the entire length of the room about 20 times per meal. Then once in a while I call SYN COME and she comes whipping in to me, sits, and makes eye contact. I click that, give her a treat, then toss another one over THERE and we start the running again.

Next we do some retrieving. She's eager to grip whatever I hold out to her - mostly pens, pencils, syringes and fingers so far, though we've also worked with clickers and toys - and she's got a solid 3-second hold, though she frequently thinks she needs to have a paw on the object while we're holding it.

Relax is a tough behaviour for her. We work on it sometimes when we're watching tv. When she's nearly asleep in my lap I occasionally hand her a treat for being relaxed. In the training sessions, though, we're working on getting her over on her side with her head down (this is a grooming position) with a bit of shaping and a bit of luring. The first day I got her over on one hip. The next day she went over voluntarily. The third day I got her off one elbow as well (head up). The fourth day I reminded her of the difference between this and the real down. Tomorrow I hope she'll come off her elbow on her own.

When relax has caught up to the rest of Level 2, we'll start rotating through the behaviours again.

Oh, and her trick - not cheating any more, though I expect to use Bang later. I'm teaching her a real trick - doing a figure 8 around my legs. The first day I lured her all the way around both legs, in and out. The second day she could do the last quarter by herself. Today she needed a hint to get started and a hint to finish, but she did the entire middle part by herself.

12 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-20T11:34:24-06:00

Had a good breakfast session, fooling around. A 5-foot sit stay straight ahead and 3 feet out to each side. A bit of eye contact without slinking - I'm sitting in a chair, tossing a treat and then playing the Come Game alone, having her sit when she arrives in front of me, and then I get several seconds of eye contact without dancing, head-flipping or anything else.

Then because a friend was having trouble figuring out some Level work, we videoed Level 2 Distance Step 3 (going around a suitcase), Level 2 Jump Step 2 (going around a suitcase with a bar on the floor), and L2 Jump Step 4 (going around a suitcase with a bar 6" off the floor. Videos should be on the website (sue-eh.ca) under the Movie Album link.

Then, because she'd just been introduced to jumping, I taught her to jump over my foot (heel on the floor, toes up). Man, this dog is SMART. I wish I had THAT little session on video. She was lured over my foot once, went around it once and got nothing, then jumped it back and forth about 8 times.

For lunch we visited a different PetsMart. This one had a doggie day care behind glass (didn't look like much fun to me, just a room with some dogs in it and a couple of toys).

Again we spent several minutes in the parking lot. Syn looked like an old hand, surveying the property. No trouble with the doors today, and we again worked in the foyer until I thought she was ready to go in. She immediately heading down the first aisle, alternately exploring and offering me superb moving eye contact.

Eventually we came to a cat room (also behind glass) and the dog room. She stopped walking to stare at the cats, and I clicked her for looking at them, but they were all still and silent and didn't present too much of a challenge. One step further down the aisle and she could glimpse the dogs - and they could see her. She backed up rapidly, but came right back when I offered her a treat. She was able to sit and down, peeking around the corner to see if the dogs were still there.

One of the dogs saw her owner and started barking, but she was saying happy things and this didn't bother Syn. Much.

After several minutes of performing, peeking, and being treated, she swung out in full view of the dog room to give me a sit - then glanced over her shoulder and saw where she was. She stood for a moment staring at the dogs, thinking of what to do. Then she tried out a mighty BARK! BARK! and was wound up for a third one but lost her nerve, her voice broke, and it came out more EEEEEK! By then I'd managed to move her back out of sight. She recovered well and we continued our tour of the store, coming back a few minutes later. This time she was able to look at them with her tail up, staring fixedly at them between giving me eye contact and offering sits and downs.

Finally we walked confidently out of the store. There was a police K9 unit in the parking lot, the dog vigorously warning everyone to stay away from his car. That DID bother Syn, but she remembered she'd be safe if she stuck with me, and she was. Halfway back to my car, she almost forgot about the police dog and started getting silly. Another successful outing. Puppy class again tomorrow night.

12 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-19T19:10:01-06:00

My baby's growing up. Her feet are growing an inch a day, her legs a bit more. Her mouth has reached the tiny-baby-teeth-in-a-huge-mouth stage (which will shortly be followed by the huge-monster-teeth-in-a-little-baby-mouth stage). And as of last week when we went to her first puppy class, she has reached the I-thought-I-was-invincible-but-I-was-wrong stage where almost anything could be fatal.

Yesterday a folded ex-pen slipped to the floor with a bang, resulting in poop, pee, and a major screech. Then some friends came over to visit in the evening, and she was visibly torn between wanting to greet them joyously and fleeing screaming from the room before they murdered her. Greeting won out, but with a large submissive urination.

Her turn-her-back-on-Zen-objects has morphed into a submissive slink-in-a-circle. I've got to be careful now.

Today I took about 3 meals' worth of kibble and wieners and went to PetsMart. We spent 10 minutes in the parking lot. A few adult dogs walked in and out of the store. Syn was interested but they were far enough away that she wasn't really bothered by them. I concentrated on rewarding any offering of eye contact, and if she stared at anything for more than a moment, I'd click and reward for looking at the dogs as well - or looking at cars, or people, or anything else.

When she was comfortable, I found a drain in the pavement and we played a game designed to teach her not to "mat dive" - once a dog has been "allowed" to pick up treats off the ground, she tends to not want any to escape, so she keeps searching until she finds one. I want her to know that if she doesn't find one she thinks is on the ground in, say, a second, she can come back to me and I'm guaranteed to replace it with one from my hand. The game is easy - I reward her for making eye contact four or five times, then I toss a treat down the drain. She looks for it... and looks... and looks, and finally gives up and looks at me. I treat her, then four or five more for eye contact, then another one down the drain, and so on.

Next we went to the automatic doors into the store. She thought she should be scared of the whoosh of the doors, but we moved away, did a few behaviours, and approached again. That went well. Did the same inside, then started to go into the store - oops, a large (calm, well-behaved adult) Sibe walked past her. Well, no screeching anyway, but she turned and booted it back outside.

I followed her out, worked her outside and in the doors again, and her recovery was excellent. Then we started going up and down the aisles, starting in the fish department where it was less likely we'd meet another dog. FanTAStic contact, sits, down, a little Zen (I'm not going to work much Zen until she forgets about that slink-in-a-circle thing), and a marvelouse loose leash.

By the time we'd done 1/4 of the store, she was starting to lead out ahead of me, examining merchandise. We finished the entire store without incident, used up almost all the food, and then paraded out to the car with her flag flying. She's started putting her front paws up on the back bumper to be lifted in to the crate in the car.

An excellent session.

12 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-18T09:16:28-06:00

First thing this morning I put Syn in the big soft crate, opened the top like it was last night, and sprinkled her breakfast on the floor around the crate. Then I sat down just out of sight. Sure enough, the little monkey climbed up the mesh using the official water-dog-getting-into-a-boat move where she pushes her head back against something (the closed part of the lid) to give her traction to climb.

Told her No (our Zen cue) and she stopped immediately. I picked up her breakfast and used it to reinforce her for being in the crate and quiet.

Then we had a rip-roaring playtime that Stitch would have done with her if she'd been here. This is exactly why Stitch isn't here - I'm forced to tire Syn out myself, which means *I* get the bond, not Stitch. When she started to slow down getting ready for a nap, I used 5 kibbles to shape her to go into the big crate, then shut her in with the roof open. She stood up, but I said No, and she settled right back down and went to sleep.

Yesterday I thought "I should work one meal on the Levels, one meal on retrieving, and one meal on shaping practise."

Today I thought "I should work one meal on the Levels, one meal active behaviours and one meal on duration behaviours like Focus and the stays."

And then I worked on my new website until I was too tired to think and put her second meal in her dish and she ate while I had a nap. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...

12 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-16T08:59:03-06:00

Stitch left on a 3-week working vacation this morning. That’ll give Syn a chance to be an only dog for a while and learn to rely on me more than the obvious draw of the other dog.

I’m re-reading Stitch’s puppy blog. One big difference I see right away is that the kibble I was feeding Stitch was very small. I got many, many repetitions per meal, but she had trouble paying attention to them so I ended up having to give her 3 or 4 bits at once. Syn’s food is a more normal kibble size, big enough to keep her attention, but fewer repetitions, so I’m “forced” to concentrate on fewer behaviours at a time. I think this is a good thing. Because of that, and working diligently through the Levels, Syn is getting a much better foundation than Stitch got, though Stitch’s foundation was better than most dogs have.

So. We had a very good session this morning. I moved to another room with a tile floor instead of carpet, and the frantic behaviour-throwing didn’t kick in when I asked for eye contact, so she passed the 2-second test. I’m not going for longer duration on any behaviour until I convince her that doing nothing IS a behaviour. LOTS of Chutes & Ladders!

She threw a few half-hearted somersaults at me when asked her to give to the leash, but she got nothing for it and soon started calmly releasing the pressure I put on.

She passed the first three Steps of Level 2 Target, up, down, sideways, over HERE, over THERE, with wooden, plastic, and metal objects, so we moved on to Step 4 - touching a sticky note on a wall. I got her to touch it first in my hand. That was a no-brainer. If I’m holding it, she’s touching it. I moved it around, then put a second note on the wall and moved the one in my hand near it. Still good. I put the first one away and tried pointing at the second one - no go, she focused on my hand until I wiggled the note a bit, then she had the idea. Sweet. That took 5 clicks from the beginning. (!) Two more and she was going 4’ to touch it.

Since we were in a new room, with her bed 8’ away, I shaped her to go to the bed. Took awhile for her to get started, making me think about how shaping is a learned skill for trainer AND dog. About 10 clicks in, she seemed to get a clue about what we were doing. Shortly after that (maybe 5 clicks) she was jumping into her bed and lying down.

Since she’s go eager to target things, we finished the session by jumping to Level 3 Retrieve. Step 1 is putting many different objects into her mouth. She got that right away, with 2 different objects - a wooden pencil and a metal spoon handle - and we worked on getting them all the way into her mouth, and on twofers - two “bites” for one click.

For lunch, I was still excited about retrieving, so we worked on that some more. Got a pretty good 1-second quiet hold of the pencil (of course I was still holding it as well).

For supper, I was still excited about shaping, so I shaped her to bump a big ball with her nose. That was fun. She kept forgetting what we were doing, but about midway through the meal she clued in and after that she got every click on the first try.

We went out this evening and left Syn in the big soft crate. When we got home, she wasn't in the crate. I have no explanation for this, unless she climbed out the window in the top, through a tiny bit of open zipper, over her head, without leaving any snags in the mesh on her way out. Very strange.

I thought maybe my husband had put her in the bedroom crate upstairs, so when I saw she wasn't in the soft crate, I went upstairs in the dark to let her out. She was hiding on the other side of my bed and peed when I came into the room, while alternating between barking and whimpering (Please don't eat me, I'm little, but I'll kill you if you come any closer!). She was so excited when I turned on the light and she saw who it was. For once I rewarded her frantic greeting - this time because she really WAS frantic. She calmed down after about 10 minutes. I think she ate something she shouldn't have because her stomach is taut and uncomfortable.

This incident makes me think about puppies left home alone without a crate. We tell people that a crate is a safe place for a puppy, from the owner's point of view AND the puppy's, but this really brought that home. Being loose in the house left her responsible for the whole house - and clearly too young for the task. That wasn't a kindness, it was just a scary time for her. Poor little tyke...

11 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-15T13:02:01-06:00

According to her vaccination schedule, Syn is “street legal” today, so we went to a puppy class.

My, didn’t she have a good time! She walked on a loose leash from the car to the building, had to think about stepping in the door for a moment but when I gave her the moment, she decided to go on in.

Inside, there were PEOPLE! People to play the Come Game with! And boy, did she! Wheee!

And then a horrible, monster 5-pound Cairn Terrier puppy showed up. This thing must have been related to Godzilla! It LOOKED at her! It wagged its TAIL at her! The HORROR! She squealed and ran behind me and peeked out through my legs. Yep, it was still there. Mom! Pick me up before it kills me!

So I picked her up, got a chair and sat down, held her in my lap for a few seconds, and then put her down and started giving her treats and asking her to do things - sit, down (would I settle for a sit? Yeah, OK), touch my hand.

Then a Miniature Dachshund puppy arrived. This was even bigger and nastier than the Cairn! It wanted to VISIT her! Back up on my lap.

When the class started, we made our way slowly around the outskirts of the room, sniffing good smells and eating treats. When we got back to our chair (alive! A miracle!) I set up her little soft crate and she dived gratefully into it. 15 minutes later she was making little forays out into the room to get treats, and backing slowly into her crate whenever a puppy came too close (a big improvement over screaming and diving into it). At one point she even had the nerve to sniff the back end of a Cavalier puppy that wasn’t looking at her (if you can’t be brave with a Cavalier, you can’t be brave with anybody!).

Near the end, a lovely, calm, rational adult Collie was put on a down about 4’ from Syn’s crate. She made a few treat-forays with him there, and then started offering me downs and sits. Maybe she thought he was big enough to protect her from all those dangerous monster puppies!

The class has been going on for 6 weeks already, and Syn was just invited for the last 2 weeks, so the other puppies are used to each other and the situation. If I had been expecting her to run into the middle of the class and show everybody how it’s done, I would have been very disappointed, but you can’t think that way. She’s a baby and she needs what she needs.

Right then she needed reassurance and a chance to assess the situation reasonably without being pushed into anything she didn’t want to do - and she responded brilliantly. Four things I was very happy about - first, she never stopped wanting treats. Second, she thought that if she came to me, she’d be safe (and she was right, I never stopped her from coming back into a safety zone). Third, she bounced back from her scares. By the end of the class when the pups were taken off lead to play, she was sitting in the door of her crate watching them run. And fourth, she was almost always willing to look at me and give me behaviours. If I can get a dog to give me behaviours that she knows, it helps to make her feel like she’s not totally helpless.

Before next week’s class, we’ll keep working on the Levels, and I’ll try to get there early so she has a chance to play the Come Game with the people again before the other pups arrive - and maybe say hello to that big Collie.

11 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-13T12:59:16-06:00

Much more reasonable day today. Last night after her supper, Stitch showed her how to open the door to the pantry and they both chowed down on a lot more kibble than they should have. Then Syn had a big drink, stretching her poor baby tummy until it felt like a balloon about to burst. At least that's what it felt like on the outside. It must have hurt a lot on the inside, because she came to me crying but didn't want to be picked up until after she went outside.

Then she had to go out three times during the night.

Zen is excellent, but not a default yet, and this morning I forgot to give her the cue, so she knocked her breakfast out of my hand and spread it all over the kitchen. She dragged 3 dozen bits of dead weeds into the house from the dog yard, and this evening she threw up peanut butter, kibble, and dead-weed-bits all over her new dog bed.

When I went out this afternoon, I left her in her crate and Stitch loose in the house, which was apparently a lot more annoying than having everybody locked up, because when I came home she did her best to demonstrate the joys of separation anxiety - yapping, clawing at the crate, screaming. Unfortunately the poor baby got no attention at all for this amazing display of pique and had to wait until she settled down before she got to come out of the crate.

At supper, I used 3 treats per behaviour and ran through everything we'd done so far. Most of it she remembered and performed amazingly well. The leashwork we started yesterday was remarkable today, though. I put a little bit of pressure on her collar and she did a complete backflip and spin (this must be a triple Salchow, or a half gainer with a twist, or something grand like that) to loosen the lead. Sounds like a freak-out EEK MY LEASH IS STRANGLING ME reaction, right? Nope. She was perfectly calm, and did her there-I-did-it tail wag when she was done. I was so surprised that I clicked it and gave her a treat, and then she repeated it. By this time I'd figured out that she wasn't really loosening the leash and that I didn't really want her to do this every time she felt the collar tighten on her neck, so I stopped paying for it, which made her do it even harder. Eventually she stopped and did it my way, but I feel like I just told Beethoven to quit making so much noise.

Anyway, she is a puppy after all and not some freaky reincarnation of Scuba.

11 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-12T12:57:56-06:00

We had a quiet morning. Playing with Stitch first thing, she hurt her front leg and wouldn't put it on the floor. 2 hours of resting seemed to have cured it but we planned on taking it easy for the rest of the day.

Not counting the shower we took together and the paddling lesson, she had her first bath today. I think I'll buy a peanut butter company. She was busy with the pb for the bath, but it took a bit more than that to get the blowdryer on her. Peanut butter on the wall, on me, on the table, on the dryer hose, lots of cuddles. I dried her tail for about 10 minutes before she let me dry her hips, but it went quite quickly from there to her back, sides, and front legs. Didn't attempt the head. She popped her pupils once, but more pb and cuddling settled her down quick enough and she was OK from then on. When we were done, of course, she got the rips and just about wore Stitch out. So much for taking it easy. Leg seems fine. She's all fluffy now except for her naked little butt. She looks like a cross between a brown and white pansy and a baboon that stuck his finger in an electric socket.

OK now, seriously, this pup is starting to scare me. Scuba was exceptionally smart. Stitch is a lovely dog, knows a lot, is reasonable and reliable and fun - but she's not the sharpest crayon in the box. This isn't something I think about a lot, since, compared to Scuba, nobody is. But this puppy is SMART.

Or maybe it's because we're working word-for-word with the new Training Levels book, it just makes her seem smart. Yeah, that's it. I'm sticking with that.

Second day of Level 2.

Zen - Step 1, complete. She doesn't just stay off a treat on the floor. She actually turned her back on it and stared at me over her shoulder.

Took it outside on the front step - WHOA NELLIE! Totally different story! Thank you, Syn, for pointing out that you are a real puppy and not Scuba reincarnated or something. She had NO idea what the cue meant, so I stopped giving it. I had to teach her right from the very beginning, she had apparently never heard of Zen before. The neat thing, though, was that she was so engrossed in figuring out how to get the kibble out from under my foot that she paid no attention whatsoever to the big wide world.

Focus - she found my eyes with no trouble at all, even in other rooms and outside. When I started building duration, though, she made worse what had been cute-but-barely-noticed yesterday: remember that I'm-doing-it tail wag? It was so successful it moved to her feet and her vocal chords, so when doing any duration behaviours, today she decided to stamp her feet and warble to speed things up. THAT is not going to continue, so in spite of the fact that I was easily getting 8 to 10 seconds of eye contact yesterday, I dropped right back to zero today and made sure I was only clicking for silence and a quiet body.

Come - she's excellent, it's her favourite thing. Today we tested coming past my leash hand so I could snap her leash on without her eating my hand or the leash.

Down - the dancing and singing took over her down as well, so we worked very slowly on Chutes & Ladders.

Sit - she knows this one. I can walk 5' away and come back and she stays. I started moving from side to side.

Lazy Leash - this is the one that scared me. She sat in front of me and I put slight pressure on the collar. It took her maybe 5 seconds to think of releasing the pressure. The next one took another 5 seconds. Then she had it. Left or right, I couldn't get her to leave pressure on it (not that I wanted her to, but gosh). I tried pulling forward on the leash. For an instant she thought about panicking, started to rear up, then gave a little startle and moved with the pressure, doing that I'm-doing-it tail wag.

Target - she did my hand in Level 1, and my feet. Now we're doing twofers on a pencil. She tried touching my hand HOLDING the pencil but didn't get a click for that so now she aims at the pencil. And that used up almost all of her meal.

Stitch wanted to do some work too, so I thought I'd start Syn on understanding that she has to do what I want her to do (rather than barge over and grab) even if another dog is getting something, but either she really is as smart as I think she is or the "This is for STITCH, this is for SYN lessons are totally assimilated into her little brain. I put on her collar and leash, put her comfy little bed near a heavy chair, and tied the leash to the chair, giving her just enough leash to get off or get on the bed. Then I moved across the room and started working Stitch through all of Syn's behaviours.

She didn't even try to come over. She sat on her bed and wagged. I tossed her a treat every now and then. Once or twice she got off the bed, but then the treats stopped so she climbed back in. Once she tried barking at me, but that didn't get her anything, so she shut up and re-arranged her paws to let me know she was DOING what I wanted. She's not ready for me to take the leash off, but holy cow.

And she's listening to my voice and learning the cues. Teaching reliable voice cues is one of my worst things and she's getting them.

My fingers are tingly.

11 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-11T12:56:08-06:00

Back in the swing. We went for a walk today, and she's not coming under my feet, but she's happy again and galloping here and there. She runs to the end of the leash and then curls back to look at me, comes around behind and runs by me again. The circling will have to stop eventually, but it'll be easy to stop and right now it's just cute because the reason she's circling is because she's looking at me with the leash loose. If she was just barging out to the end of the leash and then leaning on it as she went around me, I'd stop it right now.

She did so well on our trip that today I took her into town to get groceries - alone! She put paws up on the bumper to be boosted into her crate. Then I sprinkled a handful of kibble in the crate and started off. She was quiet the whole way, didn't say anything when I got out and went into the grocery store. I didn't greet her when I came back to the car, just got in and drove away, and she was quiet all the way home. Yee hah! There's hardly anything I appreciate more than a dog who's good in the car!

AND all day today she's been heading outside on her own. Once she was playing tug with Stitch, gave a little startle, and then ran out the dog door. When she came back in, she picked up the tug toy and continued with the game. What a good puppy.

Since we've been going over what shows are coming up after her 6-month birthday, I checked for matches and yes, there's a conformation match in 2 weeks. Today we started practising stacking. All we accomplished in the first two sessions was to convince her that MAYBE she didn't have to sit at every single opportunity. That's a good start! And while she was standing, I got to move her back legs a little bit.

We moved on to Level 2. We started with Zen. She's not quite ready to test yet, but after one what-the-heck-are-we-doing-now? mistake, she's great at it. Since we've been practising with her NOT diving into Stitch's meals, she's very, very good at Zen. L2 Step 1 is floor Zen, that's easy, no matter where we do it. Step 2 is staying off for 10 seconds - not a problem. After 4 seconds, she scooches backwards, lies down, and turns her head away from the treat. From there she looks like she could go for 3 minute Zen. Outside and other rooms makes no difference.

On to Focus. I haven't done any shaping today so she's easy to get eye contact from. We go outside on the front sidewalk. She glances around once and then swings in front of me, grabs my eyes, and sits. From there she zooms up through 2 seconds to 6 seconds with no discernible difficulty. It's awfully tempting to push her too far, but I resist. I started Focus sitting down, so I tried it kneeling, then standing up. No problem. Once I was standing, she developed a serious drift to my left (towards my right hand). Since she was doing so well, I started turning my back on her when she drifted too far away from front. The first two times she decided that staring at my hand would be as good as staring at my eyes and I had to call Puppy Puppy to get her to come in front of me to find my eyes again. The third time, she gave my hand half a second of staring and then whipped around, finding my eyes, sitting, and starting that "Look, I knew what to do!" tail wag.

Can't wait for tomorrow!

11 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-10T12:48:16-06:00

Several eventful days! Not for Syn, but for me. My son called to tell us our daughter-in-law was in labour (this was, of course, not unexpected), so I booked a hotel, packed up the dogs and all our junk, and headed off on a 2.5 hour road trip with a 10-week-old puppy. I was NOT looking forward to this (the travel with the puppy part, not the having-a-grandchild part).

The setup: I put two wire crates in the back of my SUV, one for Stitch and one for Syn. Syn's crate had a couple of toys and the towel and cuddly bed from her soft crate. I also took the small soft crate that I had tried to introduce her to the other night because I don't want to have to carry the big wire one in and out of the hotel several times a day.

Before we left, we played a rousing game of tug and chase to get Syn emptied out. I put them each in their crates and then sprinkled their breakfasts, dry, on the crate floors to give her something to do while we were leaving the yard. I put them in their crates. They both did the mighty Kibble Hunt, then Stitch lay down and went to sleep, and so did Syn. I stopped once on the trip to let her pee and give her a drink, and again she went into the crate and went right to sleep (or if she was awake, she was playing with her toenails and not saying anything).

When we arrived the "kids" were home from the hospital awaiting further developments, so Stitch and Syn had a chance to come in, work the room, and stretch their legs (this is the marvelous home that recently said goodbye to old Scuba). They went back to the hospital and we went to check in at the hotel.

I do like to get pups into hotels relatively early so they can learn that they don't have to bark at every sound. This is quite a bit younger than I generally do it, though.

S&S played for a while, explored the space, went out to pee a few times (reinforcing the idea that even in this strange place, there is another choice than dropping on the spot). Then Syn asked if she could come up on the bed with me, and promptly fell asleep, where she stayed until I went to the hospital. I sprinkled another handful of kibble in the crate when I went in, and they were both sleeping when I came back out.

That was plenty of sleeping and I expected to have trouble getting her to bed that night, but when I finally put her bed, her towel, and her toys in the little crate, I didn't hear another word from her until 5 AM when we all awakened to my phone ringing - IT'S A BOY! Since this is Syn's blog, I won't go into that...

Took her out to pee, set my alarm to get up at 7 to go meet the little man, and woke up at 8 - I guess I can't read numbers at 5 AM.

Another round of car crate, then back to the hotel.

She wanted to play, which was fine, but when she and Stitch started really getting into it and she started to bark, I brought her up on the bed so I'd have a little better control of her mouth, and she fell asleep again immediately, and stayed asleep off and on until 3 when we went back to the hospital and then came home.

But what a rip-and-tear there was when hit the living room again! So another Wow! Wow, she was terrific. Why is this dog so sensible? It's a little scary.

Re the barking-in-hotels. We had a ground-floor room with a glass door out to the parking lot, so once in a while someone would walk through her line of sight. The first time she saw someone, she coughed at them and ran right up to the glass to watch them. Her body language was halfway between "Boy, are YOU guys in trouble!" and "Holy cow, are WE in trouble!". She'd watch them for a few seconds, glance at Stitch (who yawned and rolled on her back), look at the stranger again, then run back to me so I could go drive them off. Instead, when she came back to me for support, I told her she was a good girl, gave her a little pet and a bit of kibble, and then went back to the computer. She'd go back to the door and watch, sometimes going through the same routine three or four times before the ogres disappeared. By the third stranger, though, she was just watching, with calm body language - even when a couple of skateboarders went through the parking lot.

While we were gone, I'm sure her legs grew 3", and when we got home she just casually walked through the indoor AND the outdoor dog doors to pee. When I congratulated her, she looked at me like "Yeah, that's what they're FOR, eh?"

Finally got around to taking our official “generations” portrait.

This is Scuba on the left, Stitch at 8 weeks on the right.

and this is Stitch on the left and Syn at 10 weeks on the right.

11 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-09T12:44:09-06:00

I was busy today.

Ladies and gentlemen, Simon Ailsby, my first grandchild.

10 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-07T12:40:43-06:00

Gosh, the days are flicking by so fast!

Today she came in through the triple dog door all by herself, and went through the single several times without thinking about it.

I'm changing her feeding back to 3 times a day, she seems to be spending a great deal of time with a full tummy - not that she wouldn't eat until she exploded.

I bought her a new smaller soft crate yesterday and put her little bed inside it last night. No deal, thank you very much. This was not HER crate, and she was NOT having anything to do with it. I put her back in her big crate and she went promptly to sleep.

I probably won't get to go for a walk today, I'm busy getting ready to leave to await my first grandchild's appearance in a slightly closer location, but once we're ensconced in a hotel and waiting, I expect we'll have lots of time to play outside on dry (paved) ground.

And start training Levels again.

That's a lot of work for 5 minutes, but she dug right in and got the job done!

10 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-06T12:32:53-06:00

I was right about trusting her bell-ringing. She's forgotten what that's about, so we're starting back at the beginning, reteaching it and reintroducing it.

The only training we did other than that today was making up for that killer acrobatic manoeuvre she did yesterday. We went for another walk and she was behaving very seriously, walking directly behind me with her tail down. It took me almost 15 minutes to get her running beside me with her tail up. I hope tomorrow goes better.

9 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-27T09:55:18-06:00

Taught Syn to climb the stairs today so I could take a photo for the cover of Volume 1 of the Training Levels book. I like this one best

but this is the one that got “voted in”

10 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-03T09:48:39-06:00

I took a neat series of photos today. My husband was badly bitten by a dog when he was a child, and when two dogs start playing really rough, he gets concerned. I think these photos are perfect for demonstrating the difference between rough play and serious annoyance.

Playing. Look at Syn’s body language. Her tail is up, she’s jumping at Stitch. Stitch is ready to grab her by the throat with a big enthusiastic grin.

Argh! Going for throat backfired! Puppy has her down! I love to watch adult dogs play “rough” with puppies.

And then Syn makes a serious error. She grabs Stitch’s tail.

Look at Stitch’s face. Her muzzle is all crumpled up - not the happy toothy grin she’s showing in the first picture - and the corners of her mouth are pushed forward. NOBODY touches the flag, Jack! Her voice has changed, too, from a cheerful “ung-ung-ung” to a lion roar. Syn hasn’t had time to react yet.

Here’s a better look at that crumply muzzle. Stitch is SERIOUS, and she’s letting Syn know it. Puppies who bite tails get in BIG TROUBLE.

No fool, Syn realizes her error. She’s pulled her ears tighter back, let go of the tail, and she’s backing up as quick as she can and turning her head away. If I didn’t know the dogs and saw this picture cold, I could easily think that Syn was about to be seriously injured. Stitch didn’t stop at just yelling “OW!”, she’s still coming, and she looks dead serious.

When she gets to Syn, though, her muzzle is starting to un-crumple, and since Syn stopped biting immediately and is accepting the correction by turning her face away, Stitch is content with a sideways bump to say “And I COULD have killed you if I’d wanted to!”

This is REAL dog communication, between dogs who speak Doggish. No actual force necessary, no matter how grievous the offence.

20 seconds later, Stitch offers Syn a better alternative for playing tug and Syn, understanding the lesson she was taught and taking no offense from it, is happy to accept.

10 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-05T09:47:49-06:00

I have 2 dog doors (cold climate, eh?). One is in 3 parts - inside flap, outside flap, and insulated flap in between. Further inside the house, there's a plain plastic see-through one. I've been holding the heavy one open for Syn to come through, but haven't bothered with the lighter one yet. This morning, using Park (sit) and No (Zen cue), I got Syn to stay with Stitch in the little porch between the 2 dog doors while I came into the house and closed the big door. Then I asked Stitch to come in AND SYN STAYED SITTING IN THE PORCH!! OK, that's just unbelievable. And people, THIS is what I want my training to be - that I have a chance of getting a behaviour the dog doesn't know by combining things she DOES know. Not that I thought for an instant that at this age and with this much training I could get Syn to do a sitstay while Stitch ran away from her and disappeared. And I must remember not to rely on this EVER happening again. Still. Wow.

Anyway, then I called Syn and tapped on the see-through dog door, and she pushed right through it and came in the house.

Bad night last night. We were out late and that threw her clock all out of whack. She woke up at 5 AM, ready to play. Didn't handle it well - muttered at her periodically to shut up until Ron took her out at 6. Then she slept until 9, wretched little brute.

Between the frozen peanut-butter-kibble kong (which she only gets when I'm leaving her in her crate), Scuba in the crate right next door, and me mostly remembering to put her in her crate when she lies down for a nap, she's getting pretty darn good at being in her crate. If I'm going out and she doesn't have her kong (sometimes I can't find it), I sprinkle a little kibble inside the crate so she has to hunt for it. Then she whimpers a couple of times when the kibble's gone, then she settles down.

A few times she jumped up yelling when I came home, but I just stayed out of sight (or retreated out of sight) until she shut up and either sat or lay down, and now she sits silently until I open the door. Then she circles my feet all the way to the going-outside door, grumbling madly the whole way to let me know what she thinks of the idea of being left behind.

In the afternoon we went for our second walk, hoping there would be some dry ground on the road. No such luck for at least 200 feet out from the house. Then we hit dry road and wow again (maybe I should change her name to Wow). She remembered the tiny bit of mud Zen we were doing the first time out. She'd sniff a clump of mud, get ready to pick it up, startle, stare at me, get a treat, and walk on. Leash was tight several (many) times, but she was lightly hitting the end of it and then coming back to stare at me rather than getting to the end and pulling. Most of the time she was conscious of where I was and how much of the leash she was using.

So many wonderful smells and textures!

This time on the service road we got to work on Horse Poop Zen and, once again, wow. She blundered into the scent cone from the first batch and walked to the end of the leash. Since she wasn't really pulling and we were going on HER walk, I just stood and let her sniff it. After a few seconds, she startled again and came back to stare at me. Click! We walked by more bunches and she scalloped toward it but never went close enough to grab any. On the way back, she actually walked OVER a clump of manure, dropped her nose to smell it as she was walking, and kept right on coming.

Back in our lane, with long dead grass on the sides, she got "the rips". She'd come to me for a treat, then drop her back end low, spin her tires, and race through the grass to within an inch of the end of the leash in front of me, spin and race to within an inch behind me, then forward again to stare at me to get a treat. That was WAY fun until one of her stunt-driving turns picked her up off the ground into a full airborne somersault and landed her with an audible thump on her back. That hurt. She squealed for a minute with her tail down. I picked her up and some part of her butt hurt but she got over it in a few seconds (and a few kibbles). That settled her down, no more ripping around. She walked politely at my side for at least 45 seconds.

Whatever problem she was having with sounds last week seems to have blown over. The hose in the dog tub made a strange gurgly noise that would have bothered her last week but was only mildly interesting this week, and I did her nails with the grinder again with no trouble (and very little peanut butter).

AND another "accident" because I wasn't paying attention. She's doing a good job - she's going right to the door and putting it there, so she certainly has the idea of housetraining. Now we just need to work on communication (HEY, STUPID, I NEED TO GO OUT!). Started with 1/3 of a meal shaping her to ring her bells. The next 1/3 I hung the bells on the door-to-outside. The final 1/3, I closed the door. When she rang the bells, I clicked, opened the door, and tossed a couple of treats on the other side of the door. See? You ring the bells and the door opens so you can get what you want...

Finally, since she's no longer fussing about noise, I got the outsides of her back legs shaved, and scissored her muzzle. I'm sure George Washington Carver didn't think he was inventing peanut butter so I could shave my pup's butt, but he goes down in my book as a great man anyway.

Long day, good day, synced Sync into the ground. Amazing the lengths I will go to to avoid doing income tax.

10 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-04T09:44:27-06:00

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. With an entire class of 8 year olds.

Today was a super day. I paid better attention and there were no accidents (of course I use the word "accident" lightly - any accidents are totally my fault). We've tested out every behaviour and every extra in Level 1 and she's PASSED. And she walks pretty well on leash. And she rarely bites at or claws at the walls of her crate. And she came in the dog door once - I suspect she came in between Stitch's legs because the next time I found her curled up quietly waiting outside the door.

We went to the vet to get her second parvo shot. She loved up everybody and was intensely curious but unfazed by the various noises we encountered - the printer, the phone, busy people whirling by, a dog whimpering in the back. She sat on cue on the scale, and when I put her on the examining table she responded to the sit, down, touch, and Zen cues. Doesn't seem possible something this young can think of all that. She whimpered for a moment in the car on the way there, but quickly stopped and mellowed out for the rest of the ride. Whimpered once or twice on the way home, then curled up and went to sleep. Puppy vaginitis has cleared up, but she's got a bit of unfriendly bacteria in her ears so we got some meds for that. She was excellent when I cleaned them yesterday and when the vet looked at them today.

Wow! On to Level 2! And in another week she can go to puppy class (there'll be 2 classes left when she's OK to go, and she's been invited to come out for them).

I have to start trading her a treat for things she has that she shouldn't have, instead of just grabbing for them. She's starting to turn away when she has something in her mouth and sees me coming.

Maybe the most impressive thing she did today - for supper I had them both sitting, one on each side of me. I picked up one dish in each hand. I looked at Syn and said "No. (our Leave It cue) This is for STITCH." Then I put Stitch's dish down and Syn held her sit and waited. Then I said "This is for SYN." and put her dish down. There they were - each eating politely (OK, gobbling hysterically) from her own dish, and no more than 2 feet apart.

10 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-02T09:23:34-06:00

Go for a long walk? Apparently I have no brain at all. I dreamt of being tortured all night and woke up in agony. Syn is still sleeping, an hour past her normal second-get-up time, and didn't pee when she was taken out at 6. Maybe next time we'll go for a SHORT walk.

I felt ill the rest of the day - sore, headachy, whine, whine. Syn had 4 accidents, ate 2 electric cords and a shoe, got poop on her foot and walked on my beige parlour carpet, and looked so cute when she fell asleep on my lap that I almost cried.

I ran through some of the Level 1 behaviours we've been working on - I think she's finally getting the hang of Zen without jumping up and trying to suck treats out of my hand before she backs off. Sit and down were excellent, and she was giving me downs on her mat. I took her out on a leash once and she was very good.

We did one whole meal working on Stitch's-food-Zen. At the end of the session, she was proudly staying away from Stitch's dish, her little tail wag-wag-wagging.

Then I went out and bought two short PVC exercise pens that come apart, and put them around a) my 10' kukui tree, b) all my computer cords, and c) at the entrance to the computer room so I don't have to keep trying to keep it blocked with assorted cardboard boxes and briefcases. Tomorrow should be easier.

9 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-04-01T09:20:15-06:00

I lost a couple of blogs between this one and the previous one. Don’t know how that happened but thanks, Ari Kornfeld, for finding them for me instead of working on your PhD deadline...

The last day of her 9th week. Is it really 2 weeks since I first met her?

What a change in my attitude since yesterday! Thinking that she might actually ask to go outside has changed her in my mind from a walking, talking poop and pee machine to a very smart new baby dog.

We started the morning with a brief run-through of everything we've done so far. She's definitely responding to the sit cue!

Then a nap - I'm starting (starting!) to feel the pressure of a deadline. My first grandchild was due today, which means that sometime in the next 7 days, I'll be suddenly going on a trip. Of necessity, Syn will be spending some time in a crate while we're gone (she and Stitch are coming with me). I introduced her to the world's most important invention - a small Kong stuffed with peanut butter and kibble - and I've been putting it in the crate with her whenever I think of it (mostly every time I go to the bathroom). She's doing so well at night that I've moved her bedroom crate from beside the bed to the foot of the bed.

The weather was beautiful this afternoon - almost 7 above zero. Snow is squishy, mud is muddy. Stitch went to an obedience match with her friend Fish, so Syn and I went for a long squishy, muddy walk. She hasn't worn her harness and leash for four days, but she hasn't outgrown it (quite) and she remembered how to walk on the leash. She had a blast! She ate about 4 pounds of mud and half a bale of dead grass - let's see, mud and dead grass, gosh, she's making a brick! I hope it comes out before it sets... She got "the rips" and ran big circles around me, respecting the leash but not inhibited by it at all. She found horse footprints on the service road in front of our place and had a wonderful time following them, and then (gasp) a truck went by ponying some racehorses from the nearby track. I picked her up so she could watch them go by, and then she tracked them again. She got tired about halfway home so I carried her the rest of the way. I rinsed her muddy feet and belly and we had another long warm cuddly nap.

And we ended the day with a 3-way Come Game. Boy, does she know the Come Game! She plays it at the least hint that somebody might want her, racing enthusiastically back and forth between people. If she isn't tired tonight, she never will be!

9 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-26T09:15:19-06:00

Great night - she asked to get out of the crate at 6:30 so hubby took her for a pee, then put her right back in. When I woke up she was curled tight in her doughnut-shaped bed in the crate, calm and happy and looking at me.

Good: I take her out on a leash to pee. It's cold out (wasn't there supposed to be a spring this year?) - minus 18C and she's not inclined to explore. She pees immediately. If she has to poop she walks around the car once or twice. Then she's ready to come back in RIGHT NOW. She started out galloping for the door. The leash is long enough that she can run until she gets to the start of the paved walk. Then she'd run into the leash, I'd have stopped, I'd call her and give her a kibble, then I'd start walking forward and she'd gallop the remaining 10 feet to the front door. Today she was galloping to the place where she would have hit the tight leash, then turned around before she made the leash tight and came back to me. I gave her a kibble and she galloped to the door. GREAT. Lazy leash all the way!

Bad: she learned a nifty little chain when we're outside. "Hmmm. No treats in a long time. How to get mom to give me a treat? Oh, yeah, I remember! Stop, sit, don't walk. Then mom will look at me, show me a kibble, then I'll run over and get it! Cool! Boy, training humans is EASY!"

Stitch mopped the floor with her this morning. Literally. Sync lay down while holding onto a tug toy, and Stitch dragged her back and forth like a mop. Very cute.

Another training session.

I'm using her meal, which is about 60 bits of kibble, give or take (or, y'know, spill).

She didn't lose her sit when she started offering downs - she got the sit back immediately at the start of this session. I'm about a quarter of the way through telling her what it's called (Park) before I try asking her to do it - so, 40 or 50 reps with the cue so far in our explanation of sit.

I lured a down once, and she started throwing those at me again. I started telling her what the cue is.

Then we did touch. Still opening her mouth on my fingertips or licking (LOTS of licking - I almost always meet tongue when she's touching my hand), so I switched from my standard fingertips-together hand position to presenting her with my open palm and fingers. That worked better.

And on to Zen. Still licking my hand a lot. I'm going to blame the Linkable toy that she has to lick and bounce around to get treats out of. Still, it's worth it because it helps keep her occupied. She soon remembers that we're talking about Zen, but almost every time I present my Zen fist, she licks first. It is SO cute when she suddenly backs off my hand and wags her huge tail furiously: "I'm DOING it! Watch me! I can do ZEN!"

8 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-25T09:13:40-06:00

She was tired when I put her to bed last night, so I put her in her crate without Stitch next door. She went to sleep immediately and woke up at 6:20. Took her out to pee and went back to bed until 8:30. Aside from having to watch her every second she's awake, this isn't so tough...

Took her out again, trained sit, Zen, and down for breakfast, took her out again, and then let her play with Stitch for an hour until she tried to fall asleep on my foot, so I put her in her exercise pen with her big cuddly bed. She whined and fussed - I decided that's OK, but climbing on the ex-pen or trying to eat it (it's cloth) or standing up on it or screaming is not OK. Any of those sins and I go over to her, hold the skin on the back of her neck for a second, say UH!, and walk away. She barked once at me the first time, and settled down the second time and went to sleep. Excellent.

Morning was great, afternoon and evening were bad. I was trying to get something done and she had 4 accidents, only one of which I can attribute to the puppy vaginitis. The rest were strictly my fault. I really have to remember to pay attention ALL the time, or put her on a leash attached to me.

8 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-24T09:12:28-06:00

Binkie slept all night, 10 until 6:15 again. Dear little tat.

After I took her out, she and Stitch had a long, joyous romp. Stitch picked up many different toys and paraded them in front of Sync, inviting her to latch on and have a tug. Sync started out running alongside and underneath, with Stitch dancing sideways and pushing the toys at her. Soon, though, she got enough nerve to grab for the toy - and missed, and sank her nasty little puppy teeth into Stitch's throat, then stopped running and just hung there, growling and trying to shake Stitch - not easy when her feet didn't quite touch the ground. Finally Stitch abandoned the smaller toys and picked up a marvelous large tug toy with many long arms that gave them each a chance to grab on without danger.

Between playing with Stitch, learning things, biting my toes, and exploring the house, Sync slept well in her day naps, too.

This morning we went to the vet - yesterday she started peeing two or three times every time I took her out. I diagnosed puppy vaginitis and started her on vitamin C. Vet confirmed diagnosis and treatment. It's a 20-minute drive. I kept her quiet on the way there by caging a bit of kibble in my hand and letting her lick it. I gave her 5 of them on the trip, so 4 minutes of licking and 10 seconds of chewing on each one. On the way home, she curled up and went to sleep. I used the kibble-lick for the examination as well, and she came through with flying colours.

For lunch, we practised sit, Zen, and down. She's got an excellent sit, was offering it immediately and I started telling her that the cue will be Park (I am no more up to Sync Sit! than I was up to Stitch Sit!, and I don't want to start a cue with a sound that might be her name). Down she does readily, though she's not offering it yet. Zen - not so good, probably because of that kibble-cage I used to get her comfortable in the car. "Hey, howcome I could lick it before but now I can't? NO FAIR!"

I got caught up on a lot of paperwork today so tomorrow when she's napping I hope I can scissor around her feet. She looks like she's wearing snowshoes.

8 weeks 4 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-23T09:09:31-06:00

I wonder where my brain was last night. I'll start training today? I've been with her for a week now. She has learned:

- by dint of me accidentally stepping on her paw, her fur, another paw, and her tail, she has learned not to run freely under my feet.
- not to leap boldly out of my hands (fortunately she didn't have to fall on her head to learn this).
- jumping on her pen doesn't get her out of the pen, and jumping up on people doesn't get them to look at her (this isn't absorbed into her soul yet, but it's coming), while sitting in front of people who are holding food has a good chance of being productive.
- a loud UH means "don't do that" - don't bite fingers too hard, don't fleabite skin too hard, don't go behind the big chair where the wires are, don't eat poop, don't pull Stitch's hair, don't chew on daddy's leather chair, don't chew on mom's computer screen. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Sigh. A life bounded by don'ts.
- wrestling with Stitch CAN be fun

Since I changed her food, I cut her back from 1/3 cup 3 times a day to 1/4 cup 4 times a day. She seems better able to handle it, less poop and less thirst. WAY less poop.

Another astonishing thing I have learned. In the Olden Days, besides never training with food, we never used harnesses on dogs. I've had an ordinary little harness on her from the beginning and she's reacting to it brilliantly. None of the bucking and kicking I'd expect from a first introduction to a collar, and when she gallops ahead of me back toward the house and I stop, she bumps the end of the leash, she stops, I talk to her and she turns around and waits for me (or gallops back and bites me on the ankle). Yesterday and today she's bumped the tight leash very lightly, so it's teaching her that she's going to have to wait. I can sure see that if I allowed her to drag me to the house with the leash tight, she'd already be VERY good at dragging me.

Last night I put Stitch in one crate and Sync in another with a big cushy dog bed, then I moved the two crates so their doors were right up against each other. Puppy slept from 10 until 6:30! Tonight they'll start out the same way, then before I fall asleep I'll move the doors a little bit apart.

First thing this morning, Sync and Stitch shared a growly little 3-second tug on a toy. Then Sync rolled over on her back and Stitch bunted her tummy a few times - but Sync was growling and kicking her feet, so it wasn't (totally) a submissive roll. Later Stitch played an enthusiastic game of Keepaway with the pup, though I'm not sure Sync knew there was a game in progress. I think she was just bopping around the room seeing what sort of trouble she could get into. Just now Sync chased Stitch, growling and barking as she ran, and Stitch growled and wagged as she "ran away". I TOLD her she was going to like her present!

This afternoon we managed to scare the pee right out of her. She was in the dog room with Stitch when Stitch went out the dog door. Sync stood around wondering what happened to her and then... she came back in. She must have looked like the devil come through the wall to eat puppies because Sync screamed and ran for the kitchen. Stitch followed to see what the fuss was about, which didn't help at all. It took almost a minute for the noise to stop but Sync's resiliency is amazing. When she finally shut up long enough to think, she ran to me for a cuddle and then scolded Stitch for scaring her. I took some kibble out to the dog door and she wasn't concerned at all.

I started officially training today. Videoed the first session and didn't turn on the camera. Tried it again at supper and got beginning sit, Zen, and down. Hope to have it up on YouTube tomorrow.

8 weeks 3 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-22T08:57:51-06:00

Excellent morning. I was still tired but feeling much better. Sync is easy to spot when she has to eliminate - she suddenly looks distracted and starts prowling around the edges of the space she has. She had one accident the day we got home as I was bringing in my suitcase. Other than that, she's been good about waiting and honest about her intentions (and I've been watching carefully so far). It would have been polite if her mother had held off coming in season for another month, then I wouldn't have a pup in deep snow, but oh well. There's a huge drift with only dog-sized paths in it out the back door, so for now I'm taking her out the front door. She's eager to go, eliminates immediately, has a little rip to tell me she's done, and then gallops for the door to go back in the house (we have freezing rain and blowing snow, so outside isn't much fun).

I started working on sit for breakfast this morning, then remembered I wanted to video the first and passing session of each Step in the Training Levels, which I was too tired to set up yet, so I stuffed the rest of her breakfast into a big rubber hollow toy and to my amazement she spent a solid 10 minutes working to get the food out of it, pawing it, bashing it, lifting and tossing it. What dedication! Whee!

No accidents today at all, though she's a bit loose because I changed her dog food this afternoon.

I'm shocked at two things.

First, nothing bothers her (yet). She went through the huge airports in Detroit and Minneapolis with nothing but polite interest in what was going on around her. She bounced into my house, examined the dishwasher door, made friends with my husband and decided her place in the world is sitting on him in his lounge chair - or sitting on his lounge chair if he's not in it. She's been glad to see everyone she's met so far (not an overwhelming number - next door neighbour and my kids). She hasn't heard anything that has bothered her. And she lips off anytime anything happens that isn't according to her plan.

Second, she has an incredible understanding of where she is in the world. We went into my house once. When I took her out to pee, she knew the way back into the house even though we were on the other side of three parked cars - and I had carried her out.

She and Stitch are trying very hard to play with each other. They each look very attractive from 5' away. They carry toys to each other - but when they get a foot away from each other, Stitch starts looking large, Syn starts looking strange, and they drop their toys and back off. This evening they came very close to actually playing before they each thought better of it.

And, in spite of me not yet teaching her to sit, she's started sitting like Stitch does when she wants something we're holding.

Good day. Tomorrow we start training.

8 weeks 2 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-21T08:56:23-06:00

We have to get up at 4:30 AM. This is 2:30 AM my-house time, so Sync is well and truly in a bad time-zone spot. We drive an hour to the airport in Detroit while I try desperately to keep her awake. She undoubtedly looks on me now as the worst kind of pest - she's trying to sleep and I'm poking, prodding, and generally annoying her. At one point I put her front paws on my shoulders and stand her up on her back legs on my lap, and she falls asleep in that position. We stop several times to run her around the car to empty her out and wake her up. We're failing dismally in the wake-up department. This is the last time she'll ride in a car without a seatbelt harness or a crate.

At the airport, I stuff her into her little travel bag, hook the travel bag to my rolling suitcase, and off we go. I check the suitcase because I've got my purse and the dog bag, and there are shampoos and conditioners in the suitcase for another dog - too much liquid to carry on the plane. That means I have to walk through the airport carrying my purse and the dog bag. She's up to 8 pounds now, which is, really, nothing, until I hook it over my shoulder and have to walk half a mile carrying it. By the time I get to the gate, I'm convinced that 8 pounds is about the size of a Smart Car. She's quiet the whole way - maybe the rocking as I walk is calming.

BUT when we get on the plane, she starts muttering in an increasingly loud and shrill voice. I let her lick a bit of kibble, but I don't want her to eat much in case she has to poop on the flight, and getting teased with it just makes her mad. She starts barking at it, so I give it to her ("Management deals with THIS behavior. Training deals with the NEXT behaviour." - Karen Pryor) and several more. It's hot in the plane, and even warmer in her bag in spite of the screens all around it. Soon the heat and the little bit of food overcomes her. She acts like a swaddled baby in the close, warm environment. She kind of glazes her eyes over and is absolutely silent until we've arrived at home. No trouble on the flights, no trouble in Customs. I step outside the airport and she pees immediately when I set her down. I've got a little rust-coloured harness and leash for her (complements her colour very nicely) which, aside from scratching at the harness, she doesn't mind.

I take a cab home, and she's still quiet. Take her out to pee and poop again, give her a long drink and another pee, and then turn her over to my husband and friend because I'm so tired my teeth hurt. I go to bed at 6 PM. Thank goodness for babysitters!

Sometime around 10 my husband puts the dog bag on the bed next to me with the sleeping pup in it.

At 1 AM she has to pee, so I take her out. Right back to sleep.

At 3 AM she's too hot in the dog bag, but I'm still comatose. I can't do more than take her out of the bag and hold her next to me. She sleeps until 6 and then mutters to herself until 7 when I get up and take her out. I really need to get her out of Elaine's time zone and into mine, and on the travel day she ate "wrong", drank "wrong", slept "wrong" and played "wrong".

I'll be a better owner tomorrow.

8 weeks 1 day

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-20T08:52:28-06:00

Last night at the breeder's. Most of the other pups left this weekend, there are only 2 left plus Sync. Elaine lends me a little crate which we put on a low table right beside my bed. Wait until the three remaining pups are played out, fed out, pooped and peed out, and starting to droop, then I put Sync on my bed and cuddle her for a few minutes. When she's nodding off, I put her in the crate and stick my fingers through the bars. She mutters a bit, then goes to sleep. Good pup!

Twice during the night she wakes up and starts crying and I take her out. She pees immediately and heads right back to the door. Back in the crate, mutter mutter, sleep.

8 weeks

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-19T08:48:28-06:00

We test Sync again. Oh! THERE'S my puppy! She's feeling better today. She races after the ball, grabs it, and flings both the ball and herself bodily into the tester's lap. She scolds the pan noise and instead of following when the tester walks, she picks her up by the shoes and tosses her gaily over her shoulder. What a bad puppy! Just what I want!

This time when we lie down on the bed, she's chewing my hand and trying to climb over my head and whining. She talks ALL the time - not whining unless she's really not getting her way, but growling and rrring and rurr-rurring and purring and grumbling. And she's ALWAYS looking at me.

At bedtime, I wait until the whole litter is falling asleep and then take her to my room again. She plays with my hand for a few minutes and then settles down for a sleep, but she can hear her sisters muttering and she wakes up and starts screeching so I get her settled and then put her back with the rest. I've got a clinic to teach tomorrow and I need some sleep.

7 weeks 6 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-18T08:46:32-06:00

Today we temperament test 13 (!) puppies. My husband Ron always says "You left my puppy there and got YOUR puppy again, didn't you?!" when I come home with a new pup. *I* want the evil pup, the over-the-top pup, the one who growls and tries to eat my shoe and bites my fingers too hard. HE wants the quiet one lying in the corner. Looks like today he gets his wish. Instead of following the tester, Sync follows watches her walk. She watches the ball roll away from her and then lies down. She blinks when we bang a pot with a spoon, then yawns and lies down on the tester's foot. Everyone watching is laughing at the dismay on my face, but I trust the breeder's reports of her. Still, the other pups are retrieving and shaking pant legs. Sigh.

7 weeks 5 days

sue@sue-eh.ca — 2011-03-17T15:00:00-06:00

Today I meet Hunter Sync Or Swym At Dragonair for the first time. She's one of a large herd of Portuguese Water Dog puppies - 13 puppies! There are 10 girls, 3 blacks and 7 browns. I won't pick a puppy on colour, but I'd really like a little more white than I had on my first 2 Porties, if possible, and I've finally come to the conclusion that if "my" puppy is brown, that's OK. Actually I've come past that to the point where I'm hoping for a brown. I'm also hoping for the brown bitch with the most white that Elaine (the breeder) tells me was the first one out of the whelping box and the one who spends the most time beating up her brothers and sisters, but I'm planning on making a reasoned, informed decision. Like I did last time. Right.

They had their first shots a couple of days before I arrived and the pup I'm most interested in isn't feeling well today. Everyone else is playing and wrestling and she does too, but just for a minute and then she goes to lie down. Even so, she's watching me all the time I'm in the room. Her eyes are still blue, changing slightly to dark yellow around the outside of the irises. And always she's staring at me. The pups are all friendly, outgoing, unconcerned about anything. They have a big play/living pen with a little slide, tunnels, toys and a crate, and an adjacent potty pen which they're all using. Frequently Elaine opens the pen door and, like a brown and black flash flood, they all flow outside to romp and roll and wrestle and pee and poop in the outside pen. Binky stares at me.

After 10 minutes I say "OK, let's all stop pretending I'm going to be reasonable about this. THIS is Sync!"

We cuddle on my bed until I'm ready to go to sleep, then she goes back in the pen with the herd. Stitch wants to play with her but isn't sure how. She jumps at her a little too fast and scares the baby. She weighs 7 pounds.