Monthly Archives: January 2012

21 Weeks

  By Leanne | January 14, 2012 - 9:54 am | Kim, Photos, Rio, Training, Walk
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21 WeeksI have been trying to get Rio to some busier places this week, hence our park trips and village walks. It’s a bit difficult as due to our walking locations, social night-time walks feel too uncomfortably unsafe (even if they’re perfectly safe), so we’re limited to daylight strolls. Sadly, not many people around during the day compared to evening or early morning, and as flyball training was cancelled last week we missed our social weekend too. I’m hoping Rio can come join me at agility on Tuesday for some socialisation but it takes pre-planning as I need to help set up and get Emma to take the Foundation class.

21 WeeksWe’re working on shaping a nose-touch (or ideally mouth-grab) behaviour at the moment. Rio loves mouthing people or dogs (yes, need to stop that!) but she has a very strong preference for her paws when we’re shaping with objects. Thanks to some help from Cat (DogRadical) and Vicki (Giruff) we’re making good progress but it’s definitely the most challenging thing we’ve done so far as it’s not really working with her natural inclinations.

Wait training is ongoing, REA is ongoing, but both looking good. Need to start her on the chute for flyball sometime this month.

21 WeeksAlmost all her baby teeth have gone, the last few molars went this week. Ears are all over the place, I love watching puppy ears change. Currently we seem to have drop ears in a morning and then by evening we’re back to airplane, but this week the drop ears have been around a lot more. Maybe she will have proper Aussie ears?!

Rio also has a tiny scab just to the right of her nose at the moment, which I have little sympathy for. I accidentally dropped a peice of pasta on Kim, which bounced and landed next to her paw. Rio ran over, shoulder barging Kim out of the way to get to it. Wrong move! Kim did not approve and told her emphatically so. Kim didn’t actually mean to catch her but Rio panicked and tried to reverse unexpectedly. Kim was apologetic to everyone after all the screaming and Rio has reverted to super-respectful behaviour, and I am a terrible owner because I’m not at all sympathetic. They’ll all survive!

Tell Me Thursday

  By Leanne | January 12, 2012 - 11:57 pm | Tell Me Thursday
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1. Stopping your dog – what do you prefer? On their feet? On their belly? Some combination?
2. At what point do you start teaching this?

I think this is a herding thing. I can’t think of anything where I have a stop/halt command in a training situation. Dylan stops on his contacts but there isn’t a seperate command for it, and I’ve never trained the Table since we never see it. Huh.

3. Do you have a favorite dog? I won’t tell.

I can’t lie. Kim is my favourite. I wish I had words to express further, but I don’t. I could write pages about her and still never get close to what makes her extraordinary to me.

4. What is the #1 thing a dog can do to push your buttons?

Lots of things. Dylan’s neuroticism. Latest phrase of exasperation was “Dylan, the balloon isn’t going to suddenly float down from the ceiling and eat you, you don’t have to watch it for 3 hours without blinking oh god please look at something else!” Mollie’s need to not just share the sofa but the same cushion. Kim’s incessant barking. I mean properly constant monotone bark-bark-bark when she starts because she thinks she might have heard something through the fogged up parts of her ears and then forgets why she’s barking and can’t stop. (Old dogs suck). Rio doesn’t have anything specifically annoying yet, although it’s pretty irritating when she starts alarm barking at my reflection in the window. It’s not someone outside Ree, it’s me! I’m behind you, waving!

5. Brrrrr… it’s winter. What is your favorite soup recipe?

Why are there so many cooking and herding questions on this thing?! I do neither of those things! (I love Carrot or Tomato or Potato soup. Delicious.)

Trips to the Park

  By Leanne | January 10, 2012 - 6:54 pm | Kim, Rio, Training
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We’ve been venturing further afield this week down to the big Meltham Hall park. Apparently it’s not called that any more, but whatever, it is.

This means 15mins of on-lead road walking to get there and back, which is definitely something we need to work on. All my dogs pull on the lead, I’m rubbish at training them not to. Mainly because we never have to walk anywhere on lead, so it seems like a pointless kind of skill. I’m trying to be better with Rio and teach her not to pull, we’re about 60% there but we have relapses.

We’re mainly hitting the park as there is a big children’s playground and a duck pond, so lots of small children running wild and free. So far we’ve only managed to say hi to shy and very small children, which Rio doesn’t have a problem with, but it’s still good practise.

We have also met a very over-exuberant Weimaraner who flattened her a couple of times, and I wish I’d had Kim with me on that occasion as it might have learnt some manners. Sadly we also met an intolerant Bichon as well on that walk, not a successful day. I don’t mind people having nervous dogs – I’ve got one! – but they need to be aware of it and act accordingly. Encouraging my puppy to come closer so you can have a cuddle when you have a nervous dog on a lead isn’t good for my dog or yours.

Rio is slowly coming around to the idea that ducks aren’t scary too. We’ll see if she can get over that by the end of the week!