Tess Turns One

Happy Birthday to Tessie.  Salmon Doggie Birthday Cake all around.

And the shocking truth of no 'sit stay' at a year old.  I know.  She was so shut down as a pup that I wanted to focus more on encouraging behaviors rather than working on impulse control.  Because you have to have some impulses before you can control them.  It is becoming an issue at agility class because there are some exercises where it would be good to have a lead out.  My agility instructor gave me a month so I have a solid goal to shoot for.  That was 2 weeks ago and we're getting there.  Tess is doing much better than Ruby but Ruby is doing o.k.  We'll all get there.

Tess' birthday was actually December 28 according to the rescue but I'm not sure if that's her fake birthday that they had to give her to get her out of Texas because in Texas your 4th grader can take an AK47 to school but you can't take a dog over state lines unless it's vaccinated and the pups were too young so the rescue kind of fudged it.  And who really knows for sure anyway.  The pups were pulled out from under the house on February 4th and I think the guess was that they were around 4 weeks old.  So I'm going to put Tess' official birthday and Jan. 3rd, 2017.  Because why not.  Lola's birthday was the end of December and it was always so confusing to remember what year she was born since it was so close to the year turning over so January will make things easier to remember.

She's doing really well, she's come so far.  She loves going for walks and is very confident.  She still wants nothing to do with other dogs but so far is not reactive to them.  She ignores them and will try to get away if they get too close.  This can still change so I'm forever working on this.  I've taken her to a quiet DOCNA trial and a busy USDAA trial, both indoors at the same place, and she did great walking around.  She won't go in the bleachers which is not a huge deal.  I was mostly working on shaping her to do it since she seemed o.k. with all the other hub bub going on around her.  I got her to walk under the measuring stanchion on the ground with the measure part up high.  She took treats from some strangers.  She was excited and confident outside around the grounds, there was lots of yummy goose and horse poop.  I don't mind the horse poop but too much goose poop can be toxic so I had to limit her time in those areas where it was bad.

She's doing well at agility, still sometimes alarm barking at people but it's easier now to stop her.  This week we worked on front crosses and the teeter and I've got some video footage of her.  She looks so very slow to me, even trotting at times but the exercise had so many turns.  It felt like it was more about me learning the handling and timing than her getting to run.  She's so handler focused in part because of the type of handling work we've been doing.  I need to get her out to the practice field and let her go on some extension type exercises.  But I haven't been to the field in over a year, maybe two because I can't reserve it just for myself and Tess will be scared if another dog comes, no way she'll do anything.  I'm always taking a chance that I'll get something set up then have to leave.  I was so sure I'd have my own place by now.  Maybe I'll take some jumps to the dog park super early, that way if someone comes and I have to leave at least I didn't waste any money.  Hmmm.  I did have an agility friend offer for me to come over to practice.  She's almost an hour's drive away but I think it'll be worth it.  Now if only I can remember to contact her to set something up.

A short clip from Wednesday's class.  There's an example of her alarm barking at the start.  She's doing it more to get my attention than because she's scared.  She knows the guy she's barking at and he's given her zillions of treats over the past few months.

 

I was super pleased with the teeter.  She doesn't like putting her back feet on the planks but we've been practicing 2 on/2 off on a short plank in the living room propped against the couch and she thinks that's a great game.  Now to get her over her fear of heights.



Overall Tess is doing well at her one year mark.  She's always going to be afraid of new things but at least she's happy, comfortable, confident in her normal routine. 

Foundation Training Update

I finally shot some video of our foundation class.  We've mostly been working on front crosses for the past 2 weeks for the handling portion of class.  Last week we had some more A-frame familiarization and this week some running on the low dogwalk.  Tess was spayed a week ago Thursday so she sat out this past week's class and missed the dogwalk practice but did get some A-frame exposure last week.  It was her second time on the thing and this time she made it maybe 2/3-3/4 of the way up the up ramp.  Her first time on it she only got on it on the bottom, maybe took a step up so this was some improvement.  Ruby runs the whole thing no problem though if we put a food bowl down she'll run past the A-frame to the bowl when I release her.  This is a common issue with her for all equipment.  She still doesn't get that she has to do the thing before she gets the treat.  Or probably she does get it but she's going to chance it anyway and run straight to the treat.

Last week the heater was on for the first time and poor Tess freaked out the moment she walked through the door and turned right around trying to go back out.  I spent some time tossing treat balls around for her until she finally calmed down enough to do a tunnel and a jump.  For her second turn she was finally able to work the sequence.  Though the instructor turned the heat off right away and never turned it back on.  Not sure what she'll do this winter when it needs to stay on.  And if she's going to compete indoors in the winter she'll have to get used to the sound of a heater.  But maybe she doesn't have to compete.  The hurdles she has to go through before she'll be able to sit on a start line are considerable.  All I can do is see how she goes and keep working with her and if she never sees a competition ring then oh well.

Tess Video



Miss Ruby was awesome, she came out and ran her sequences no problem.  Well, other than my problems.  I'm thinking more about foot placement, especially for those front crosses, and how I place my feet when I turn and go.  The old way I've been doing things is clunky and inefficient and often sets the dog up on the wrong line.  So my self-imposed homework for this week is to work on the various types of front crosses without the dog, just me and some jumps. 

Ruby's Videos

Last Week




This Week



I also need to work on more obstacle commitment with Ruby, especially at the tunnels. 

Tess will be back at class next week, we'll see how she does with the heater.  Silly freaky dog.

This is the same snow from a few weeks ago, it's sunny out now and the snow is long gone but I haven't shot any new photos lately so these will do for now.

Going Social x 2

The last week was a big one for Tess, a trip to the vet and getting her out as much as I can.  The vet told me not to worry about waiting for the immunizations to take effect, she's never seen a case of parvo around here and socialization is so much more important.

She handled the drive to the vet no problem.  I kept stuffing kibble in her crate and she was quiet.  Getting her out of the crate and into the vet was another matter.  I had to physically pull her out of the crate, something I was loathe to do but no way she was coming out.  Then I waited her out until she'd go through the door to the vet.  It was a busy day, a big noisy dog was there for grooming and barking and lots of people in and out of the place.  The vet tech gave her lots of treats and I tried to shape her to go on the little baby scale they had in the room.  Got her front paws on no problem but couldn't get the rear in a timely matter so again had to muscle her onto the scale.  But the rest of the appointment went o.k.  My vet friend was very good with her and Tess managed the shots no problem.  She has an umbilical hernia that is getting worse and not going to resolve.  I was hoping it would hold out until her spay but my vet thinks not so much.  But for now I'm going to keep an eye on it and hope it'll hold out for the next few weeks so I can work on the ever important socialization with her.  Some say that window slammed shut at 12 weeks, others say 14 and still others say 16 weeks.  She's at 14 weeks as of Tuesday which means somewhere in my head I lost a week since I've been telling people she's at 13 weeks.

Sun Buddies

She's been doing better with walking, has seen some people and dogs and been o.k. with it.  Yesterday we went on an impromptu parallel walk with my neighbor and her calm-ish friendly dog.  Tess did great with that and my neighbor saved us from the idiot Portuguese Water Dog that is ALWAYS loose.  Ruby hates that dog, it's not aggressive per se but it does have that stupid Tarzan Dog personality and charges at her full speed.  The woman who owns it has been letting it run loose for the past 8 years or so and they live right next to a park we walk through all the time so it's a problem.  There's no reasoning with the owner, she's stinking rich and doesn't care, thinks she owns the place and is more than capable of paying any Loose Dog fines.  Think I may start carrying some citronella spray.  I hate to do that but I have to look out for my dogs and I can't help the idiots out there.

A couple of my friends with nice calm dogs have come by to visit Tess, both on the same day.  The first dog belongs to my agility training partner and is a nice calm mini poodle, just a bit bigger than Tess.  She was scared at first, ran to the back of the house and barked.  We all ignored her and eventually she came out and joined us in the living room.  Many treats later she was finally relaxing a bit around the dog and was happily taking pets and treats from my friend.  The second dog was a very calm sheltie owned by the woman who gave me Ruby so Ruby was happy to see her.  Tess not so much at first and she refused to come out of the back room so we all went and joined her and again, many treats later she relaxed. 

Funny thing is she was totally fine with me and Jonny and Ruby when we went to the foster mom's house, very confident, played with us.  But she's only been with me 2 1/2 weeks and she was in the foster home for 5 weeks or so.  I hate to push too much on her at once but that socialization window is shutting and it will only get harder.

And office buddies.

Last night she went on a half hour car ride out to a friend with a Border Collie I didn't know who turned out to be too energetic for Tess right now.  So instead Tess met her 3 kids and husband and did great with everybody.  She wandered around her yard a bit, my hope being that eventually I can bring her back and she can play with the other dog and it'll help if she's familiar with the yard.  She barked and whined mightily on the journey out there.  I had her in a seat belt harness so I wouldn't have to manhandle her out of a crate and I gave her treats here and there but I had to focus on driving.  She slept on the way back, phew.

The 5 year old neighbor girl has been coming over almost every day and Tess is finally comfortable enough to go up to her for snugs even when she doesn't have treats.  She even started playing with her yesterday.  And her older brother came over with her for the first time and Tess was fine with him, let him pet her with no treats, went up to him no problem.  So at least she's good with kids so far.  So grateful to the neighbor girl for that.

She was in her first snow the other day.  At first she wouldn't go in it but once she did there was no stopping her.



Trying to arrange a day for my friend with a nice mellow greyhound to come over and hopefully a trip up to my other friend's hobby farm and another big friendly dog for her to meet along with baby goats.  But we'll see, they got a lot more snow up in the mountains so it might not be reasonable to go up this weekend.  My snow is nearly gone, just a bit along the shady fence line.

Funny all the socializing I've been doing along with the puppy.  Some of these folks I haven't seen in ages, not because I don't want to see them but because everyone is busy and I've not thought to make the effort.  Such nice people, all of them, I need to do better to stay in touch with people.

Ruby is doing great, has not only started playing more with toys but has also started playing with Tess!  Shocking!  I never thought I'd see her play with another dog.  I think she started doing it at first because she didn't like being left out when I played with Tess and now I think she might even like it a bit.  I'll have to get some video.

I re-twisted my ankle the day after the One Mind Dog seminar, was sore after being on my feet all day and then the ankle was a bit unstable the next day.  Feels fine now but I'm still restricting myself, partly because the puppy is a huge time suck and partly because I want it to heal so I can play this summer so I'm being good.  But the lack of exercise is awful.  I'm keeping up with masters swimming and I can bike if I want but that's a big time suck and the trails have been snowy/muddy.  Did go out on the dirt roads over the weekend, it felt so good to get out there but I'm bored with my route.  And no baby buffaloes yet.  Been doing some strength training but not enough.  Trying to find the motivation for it.